WOOD
S.C'U LPTU RE
BY
ALFRED MASKELL, F.S.A.
NEW YORK : G, P. PUTNAM'S SONS
LONDON : METHUEN AND CO, LTD,
PREFACE
HARDLY any other division of the arts covers
so wide a field as that which is open before
us in the study of the use of wood in its
decorative applications of every kind. The history of
all the arts in all countries from the earliest Egyptian
times ; the schools of painting, of engraving, and of
sculpture in other materials ; the goldsmiths', metal-
workers', and even the potters' crafts ; church lore and
liturgiology ; the varieties of furniture of every descrip-
tion, ecclesiastical and domestic ; the science and art of
coins and medals ; symbolism, natural history, botany,
even heraldry — these things and more, perhaps, con-
front us from time to time, and present points of
contact which cannot be ignored. In endeavouring,
therefore, to treat so comprehensive a subject, in a
single volume, I cannot but be aware that I lay
myself open to the criticism of specialists in all the
many divisions with which I may have the hardihood
to connect it, and I can scarcely expect to avoid the
numerous pitfalls-
After about the twelfth century the quantity of
available material is so great that it seemed to me that
the only plan would be to restrict the getteral scope in
the mam to figure sculpture and to certain decorative
work in relief, and to consider wfr£fc examples could be
selected which would best illustrate the evolution of the
art and the influences exerted by one country on
another. It may be asked why such aad such a figure
or other wdrk has been included, or why such another
one faas b««fi isissed over* The only answer is that a
WOOD SCULPTURE
choice had to be made. Jt was necessary, also, to draw
a line somewhere, and I have done this — generally
speaking — at the end of the Gothic period. Whole
geographical divisions — Russia, China, Japan, and the
East have, perforce also, been left untouched.
The history of domestic furniture already possesses
an extensive literature, and our present interest in it is
limited to the subjects of the decoration. In the case of
such divisions as chancel screens, choir stalls, miseri-
cords, bench-ends, and the like, it has not seemed to me
necessary to treat them in detail The student who
desires complete information and full lists will consult
the special publications to which references will be
found in the Bibliography. There are, in addition,
numerous articles in the transactions of local archaeo-
logical societies,
For a work of so comprehensive a character I must
admit my many disabilities and restrictions. I canm
pretend to universal knowledge of existing examples 1
wood sculpture, in all countries and of all ages, whi<
may have claims for notice. In my selections I hai
given the preference, as a rule, to those which hayej
come under my own notice in our home museuafcjj
and in many museums and collections on the CODH
tinent I have availed myself largely of numerou^
notes made at various times during several years, as
well as of other assistance whenever I have found
anything already collected which appeared to me to be
useful, I am free, indeed,. to admit that erudition, or
even originality, are the least of the qualities — even.||
I possessed them— for which I should desire creda|
My aim is to be readable, and to set forth the subject
in the simplest and most intelligible matmer. This
book is not addressed to those already fully acquainted
with the matter, but to the inquiring English reader
to whom some of it, at least, may be entirely new*
The Bibliography, in fact, shows how few books exist,
vi
PREFACE
in English, in which any information at all — and still
less, illustrations — are to be found on many details
which are here discussed.
My indebtedness is great to such writers as Bode,
in the case of German art, Fabriczy, Fogolari, and
D'Achiardi for Italy, Molinier for France, Destr^e
for the Netherlands, and Habich for the German
medallion carvers- Were it not for limitations of space,
I should no doubt have availed myself still more
largely of the learning and research of these writers.
A word must be said in excuse of imperfections in
the quality of some of the illustrations which may not
be thought, in every case, entirely satisfactory. The
photographing of the objects themselves, in museums,
has often been attended with considerable difficulty,
from their position in obscure corners, and from the
practice of placing under glass. Others have had to be
copied from poor photographs in books, or obtained
from abroad, and, in the case of some important pieces,
it has not been found possible to procure any photo-
graphs at all In some instances, also, there has been
the unsurmountable difficulty of adequately rendering
the colouring of the sculpture.
But in the matter of the illustrations, generally, my
warmest thanks are due to several friends for their very
kind and disinterested assistance. Amongst them I
must especially mention Mr. George C Druce, Mr,
Francis Bond, Mr, R L. S, Houghton, MA., Dom
Bede Camm, the Rev. JL W. Banke, Mr, E. W. Smith,
Mr- A, G. Thompson, Mrs. George Wilson, Mr,
Frederick Evans, Mr, R H. Crossley, Mr. Aymer
Vallance, and Mn Herbert Read, of the Woodcarving
Works, Exeter, who has so ably restored many of
the Devonshire chancel screens- To all these I am
indebted for valuable aid by the loan of collections of
photographs of English carved work, such as screens,
misericords, and bench-ends, and, where I have been
vii
WOOD SCULPTURE
able to avail myself of it, by leave to reproduce from
them. In addition, my publishers desire recognition of
permission from the respective publishers or owners to
make use of their copyright photographs for plates : —
Messrs. Alinari, Florence; Amslerand Ruthardt, Berlin;
F. Bromhead, Clifton, Bristol ; Carl Ebner, Stuttgart ;
M. Frankenstein, Vienna ; A. Giraudon, Paris ; Neue
Photographische Gesellschaft, Steglitz-Berlin ; Neur-
dein Fr&res, Paris ; G. Schwartz, Berlin ; Karl Teufel,
Munich ; W. Zink, Gotha.
A. M.
April igii.
vm
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE, v
LIST OF THE PLATES, xi
CHAPTER I. Introductory — Prehistoric Art —
Wood Sculpture in Ancient Egypt, . . i
CHAPTER II. Wood Sculpture in the early Middle
Ages and Later, 19
CHAPTER III. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and
Fifteenth Centuries — Guilds and Corpora-
tions, 40
CHAPTER IV. Retables in Flanders and Ger-
many, ....... 61
CHAPTER V. Wood Sculpture in Germany in the
Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries, . 75
CHAPTER VI. The Franconian, Bavarian, and
other German Artists and Workshops of
the End of the Gothic Period, ... 94
CHAPTER VII. Veit Stoss — Riemenschneider —
Pacher — Multscher — Brtiggemann, . . 99
CHAPTER VI II. Sculpture in Boxwood — Fran-
cesco da Sant* Agata — Conrad Meit — Hans
Wydyz, 140
CHAPTER IX. German Medallions in Wood, . 161
CHAPTER X. Microscopic or Miniature Wood
Sculpture, 183
ix
WOOD SCULPTURE
PAGE
CHAPTER XL Wood Sculpture in Spain — Some
Spanish Retables and their Makers, . . 192
CHAPTER XIL Crucifixes and Madonna Figures, 214
CHAPTER XI I L On some Examples of Wood
Sculpture of the Trecento and Quattrocento
in Italy, 239
CHAPTER XIV. On the Colouring of Wood
Sculpture, 261
CHAPTER XV. Wood Sculpture in England in
the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth
Centuries — Coffers, Chests, and Panellings
— Sepulchral Effigies and Small Figure
Work, 279
CHAPTER XVI. Choirs and Choir Stalls, . 313
CHAPTER XVI L Symbolism in Church Wood-
work— Misericords — Bench-Ends, . 336
CHAPTER XVI II. Chancel Screens and other
Carved Woodwork in Parish Churches in
the West of England, .... 373
CONCLUSION, 402
INDEX, 417
LIST OF PLATES
STATUE. The Sheik el Beled. Frontispiece
TO FACE PAGE
i. CHURCH DOORWAY, Scandinavian. Twelfth
century, 20
ii. PANELS with angels. Savoyard. Sixteenth
century, 48
in. i* RETABLE at Dijon, 2, CARVED LETTERS :
M. and F. of Margaret of Austria, . . 50
iv. ALTARPIECE in Victoria and Albert Museum.
Flemish. Fifteenth century, 70
v. RETABLE OF CLAUDE DE VILLA. Flemish.
Fifteenth century, 72
vi. RETABLE in Marienkirche, Liibeck.
Flemish, Early sixteenth century, . . 88
VIL ALTARPIECK at Cracow. German. By Veit
Stoss, Fifteenth century, . . .102
VIIL HANGING ROSARY WREATH, By Veit Stoss.
Sixteenth century, 104
ix. GROUP. St. Anne and St. Joachim. Vic-
toria and Albert Museum. Suabian
School Early sixteenth century, . .114
x. RETABLE at Rothenburg. By Riemen-
schneider. Fifteenth century, . .116
XL SHRINE by Riemenschneider. Reliefs by
Veit Stoss, 118
xi
WOOD SCULPTURE
TO FACE PAGE
xii. PENITENT MAGDALEN. i. By Riemen-
schneider. 2. By Donatello, . .120
xni. i. PORTRAIT BUSTS. 2. BUSTS: Adam
and Eve, 122
xiv. GROUP : ' Fleeting Life.' Ambras Collec-
tion, Vienna, 123
xv. i. ST. SEBASTIAN. 2. EVE. Museum
of Louvre, 124
xvi. GROUP. The Virgin, St. John, and Mary
Magdalen. Flemish. Sixteenth cen-
tury, 125
xvn. PANELS, with figures of Evangelists.
Bavarian. Fifteenth century, . .126
xvin. FIGURES. SS. Barbara and Margaret.
By Hans Multscher. Fifteenth cen-
tury, 128
xix. i. THE MADONNA of Nurnberg. 2. MA-
DONNA. Rhenish. Fifteenth century, . 130
xx. THE MADONNA of Nurnberg. Half-length, 132
xxi. ALTARPIECE. Suabian. Sixteenth cen-
tury, I34
xxn. ALTARPIECE. Suabian. Fifteenth cen-
tury, 136
XXIIL GROUP. SS. Gereon and Catherine.
Augsburg. Sixteenth century, . . 138
xxiv. FIGURE. St. Elizabeth. Elizabethkirche,
Marburg,
xxv. STATUETTE. Boxwood. Hercules. Wal-
lace Collection,
xxvi. STATUETTES. Boxwood. Adam and Eve.
Gotha Museum,
xxvii. i. GROUP. St. Christopher. 2. STATU-
ETTE. Boxwood, Jamnitzer, . .158
xii
LIST OF PLATES
TO FACE PAGE
xxvni. MEDALLIONS. Boxwood. German. Six-
teenth century . . . . .180
xxix, MINIATURE ALTARPIECE. Flemish or
German. Sixteenth century, . .186
xxx. MICROSCOPIC WOOD SCULPTURE. Flem-
ish or German, Sixteenth century, . 188
xxxi. RETABLE OF SEVILLE CATHEDRAL, . 208
xxxii. POLYCHROMED FIGURES, i, 2, Spanish.
Seventeenth century. 3. French.
Fourteenth century, . . . .211
XXXIIL i. BUST. * Mater dolorosa.' Spanish.
2. PREDELLA. Spanish. Seventeenth
century, 212
xxxiv. CRUCIFIX FIGURES. French. Twelfth
century, 216
xxxv, CRUCIFIX. By Brunelleschi, „ . 222
xxxvi- MADONNAS. Romanesque, . . . 226
xxxvn. MADONNA. French. Fourteenth century, 232
ocx vm. i. MADONNA. French. Fourteenth
century. 2. * Anna seibdritt' group, . 234
xxxix. i. ANGEL GABRIEL OF AN ANNUN-
CIATION GROUP. Italian. Fifteenth
century. 2* MADONNA. Italian. Four-
teenth century, 236
XL. MADONNA. By Jacopo della Quercia, , 238
XLL ANNUNCIATION FIGURES, Pisan school
Fourteenth century, .... 246
XLII. ANNUNCIATION FIGURES. Pisan school.
Fourteenth century, - 250
• XLHI. ANNUNCIATION FIGURES. Pisan school
Fourteenth century, .... 252
XLIV, i. ANGEL GABRIEL. 2. ANGEL
MICHAEL, Italian. Fourteenth century, 254
xiii
WOOD SCULPTURE
TO FACE PAGE
XLV. ANNUNCIATION FIGURES. Florentine
school. Fifteenth century, . . , 256
XLVL ANGELS. English. Fifteenth century, . 290
XLVII. CHESTS, i. English or Flemish. Four-
teenth century. 2, French. Fifteenth
century. 3. French ? Fifteenth cen-
tury, . 296
XLVIII. SEPULCHRAL EFFIGIES. i. Italian.
2, 3. English, 304
XLIX. FIGURES OF APOSTLES, i. English. '
Fourteenth century. 2. By Riemen-
schneider, ...... 308
L. DETAILS OF CHOIR WORK. Amiens
Cathedral. Sixteenth century, . „ 328
LI. DETAILS OF CHOIR WORK. Auch
Cathedral Sixteenth century, , . 334
LII. EXTRACTS FROM SKETCH - BOOK OF
WlLARS DE HONECOURT, . . „ 350
LIIL MISERICORDS. English and French, . 368
LIV. PANELS on the Backs of Benches in
Church of North Cray, Kent, . . 372
LV. STATUE. St. Catherine. English.
Fourteenth century, . 373
LVL PARTS OF CHANCEL SCREENS, . , 388
LVII. DETAILS OF CORNICES OF DEVONSHIRE
CHANCEL SCREENS, . . . . 390
LVIIL DETAILS OF CORNICES OF WEST
COUNTRY CHANCEL SCREENS, . „ 396
LIX. DETAILS OF CORNICES OF DEVONSHIRE
CHANCEL SCREENS, . . . ,401
xiv
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xxii
BIBLIOGRAPHY
LABARTE (P.) : Histoire de fart indtistrieL 1847.
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xxiii
WOOD SCULPTURE
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xxiv
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xxvi
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xxvii
WOOD SCULPTURE
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xxviii
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xxix
WOOD SCULPTURE
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XXXI
WOOD SCULPTURE
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xxxn
WOOD SCULPTURE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY— PREHISTORIC ART— WOOD
SCULPTURE IN ANCIENT EGYPT
WE may not, perhaps, be able to claim for
wood sculpture that in any examples that
have come down to us, throughout the ages
or in any land, the general level of excellence has reached
as high as that of sculpture in marble or in stone.
We may not be able to produce chef $-d' centre equal to
the most famous of those in bronze or in the precious
metals. We may have to be content to class it among
the , minor arts — whatever that indefinite term ought
strictly to mean. Yet if we should take but one depart-
ment, that of figure sculpture, whether we consider it as
statuary, as smaller works in the round or as bas-reliefs,
it may be fearlessly asserted that undeniable masterpieces
have been produced which will bear comparison, at least,
with anything in the whole range of the kindred arts.
And, as we shall see, it may be claimed that, at any rate
in Renaissance times, the creations of the goldsmiths'
or the bronze-workers' masterpieces were often first of
all conceived and executed in the highest perfection of
detail by the chisel of the wood sculptor. Having
served their purpose it is unfortunately true that, owing
possibly to tneir fragile or perishable nature, it is but
in rare instances that these productions have come
down to us. We need not, of course, stay to consider
A i
WOOD SCULPTURE
what is obvious, that is the analogy which may be
drawn between these models and those in clay or wax
of the marble sculptor or bronze founder.
If we have to hew out of wood a figure of monu-
mental proportions, the method by which we accom-
plish it, the canons of art which we follow, resemble
those where the material is marble or stone. For
work of lesser dimensions it may be compared with
ivory carving. Illustrations will be given of carvings
on so minute a scale that they are justly called micro-
scopic, and yet are no trivial tours de force. Wood
is not like clay or wax, a plastic, or rather, a flexible
material. It is for chiselling, not moulding. It has
its own special qualities. There are many varieties,
and it abounds in the forests throughout the world.
It is less fragile, tougher, and more amenable than
stone. It has more elasticity than marble, possessing
a fibrous nature in various degrees. Certain kinds
differ in the closeness of their graiji, some being com-
pact, while others are loose and open. Besides differ-
ences in colour, wood possesses also many beautiful
varieties in its veins and knots, but these are qualities
with which we shall not be concerned. Except for
tarsia work, and in certain kinds of furniture, they are
inconsistent with the aims of the sculptor proper.
The colour is of importance, and covers a considerable
range from that approaching the ivory white in the
elm, through the different shades of box which plays so
important a part in our subject, to the deep jetlike
black of ebony. Besides the colour, age brings to
wood a mellowness and diversity of tone which may
be likened to the patina of bronze and other metals,
And in addition to these qualities it may be dyed or
otherwise coloured. As a material the disadvantages
are its perishable nature, and the liability to warp or
twist, which no amount of seasoning, in some varieties,
can counteract.
MATERIAL AND PROCEDURE
Considered as a medium for sculpture, wood has
a message of its own, which, for those who can
truly understand it, must be delivered in a certain
way by which it is distinguished from the tech-
nique employed when other materials are used.
It is especially suited to the expression of the
grotesque, and, as its own nature would obviously
suggest, to the illustration of plant-form, foliage, and
vegetation in their most free-growing character. Yet
it must not imitate nature, but inspire the ideas sug-
gested by natural growth, its form, development,
and ever-pushing vitality. To do this does not
necessarily imply naturalism. The range is immense
in the scope afforded between the suggestive conven-
tionality of the art of mediaeval times and the
mechanical imitation which distinguishes the work of
the much-bepraised English decorator of the seven-
teenth century. The methods of the statuary and
figure sculptor in wood differ from those of the marble
sculptor in that he goes straight at his work, and
employs no pointer. His aesthetic aims and his tech-
nique differ. He is impelled towards realism and,
almost as a matter of course, towards the addition of
colour. The danger in his path is a too faithful de-
pendence on and following of the methods employed
in great sculpture in stone, marble, or bronze, or even
in forgings and castings in iron. He is apt, at times,
to forget the limitations and special qualities of his
material
The first carving in wood was the parent of all
sculpture in succeeding ages, and he who first cut it
for decorative purposes was the first sculptor. It would
have suggested itself to the prehistoric artist as a
handy material long before the bone remnant of a feast.
For modelling, possibly earth in the shape of some
tenacious clay would have preceded it. Then would
have come tne whittling of a stick or block obtained
3
WOOD SCULPTURE
from the nearest wood. Very soon the savage, with the
natural love of man for ornament and display, would
have carved the handle of his war-club with lines and
curves and patterns, serving at the same time to give it
a better grip.
The South Sea islander to the present day decorates
his fighting canoe with a deeply incised spiral orna-
ment, which seems to have descended with little
variation from the most distant times. The earliest
art was an imitation of nature, an attempt to transmit
to others, in some tangible form, an impression,
appealing to his imagination, of what the artist saw.
From that time onwards no one will deny the interest
that even uncultured efforts will excite, and the chartn
from the very naiveness of the expression, provided
that these efforts are sincere.
Allusions to wood sculpture and to images of wood
in the Holy Scriptures might, of course, be quoted to a
considerable extent. In Genesis we read how Rachel
stole her father's images and carried them away. In
Isaiah the carpenter's and sculptor's crafts are frequently
mentioned : for example, how graven images were
made, how the carpenter ' marketh out with a compass '
and ' maketh it after the figure of a man, according to
the beauty of a man : that it may remain in the
house ' (xliv. 13) ; how he heweth down cedars and the
cypress and the oak, which he uses for various pur-
poses, ' and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even
his graven image' (xliv. 17). And it will not be
necessary to do more than refer to such passages in
ancient history, as where we learn from Pausanias about
Daedalus who carved statues, fourteen centuries or so
earlier, which still existed in the writer's time; and
of the mixed wood and ivory statues in the temple
of Athene Atlantis, the statue of Bacchus in ebony,
gilt except the face, which was painted ; the Jupiter m
wild pearwood, the ^Esculapius in willow, a head of
4
IN ANCIENT EGYPT
Dionysius of olive, and many more, in cypress and
other woods, painted, gilded, or inlaid with gold.
Such information as this is, to our regret, almost all
upon which we can rely regarding wood sculpture in
ancient Greece and the Roman empire : actual existing
examples are rare indeed. But of a still more ancient
civilization — that of Egypt — we are more fortunate in
the remains of statuary and small sculpture in wood
which are not surpassed in interest by any other sculp-
tured records whatever. The age of some of them,
amounting to thousands of years before our era, is
conjectural only. The museum at Cairo, as is fitting,
possesses the finest and the greater number : amongst
them the famous figure of the Sheik el Beled. The
Louvre is rich, in quality at least, but the examples in
our British Museum, however interesting in archaeo-
logical interest, are sadly deficient in beauty and
attraction. That we look to Egypt as the cradle of our,
race, and seek in her monuments for traces of the
earliest efforts made by man in the expression of art, is,
of course, undeniable. Amongst these earliest efforts
— that is of an art which appears to have already
attained an extraordinary degree of development and
perfection, for the earliest we possess have that charac-
ter— are the figures and statues in wood, from which
two or three will be selected for illustration. More
than this cannot be done here, for no pretension is
made to an examination of ancient Egyptian art
generally, with which these figures are so intimately
connected that we should soon be led far beyond our
limits and beyond the capacity of the present writer.
At a period of the world's history so remote as
to be almost fabulous, but may be counted as at
least sixty centuries, if we may judge from the
earliest examples of sculpture which have come
down to us, Egypt was in possession of a fully
developed system of art. This system, whether
+j
WOOD SCULPTURE
based on hieratic traditions or on a natural aptitude
for the observation of nature, has in its way never
since been surpassed. However this may be, we are
not in possession of sufficient information to justify
any certainty of opinion concerning what canons, if any,
were followed by the sculptors of these great portrait
figures, whose use and destination will presently be
alluded to. To that use, added to the dryness of the
climate and to the rifling or systematic examination of
the numerous tombs, we owe the preservation of these
works of art in a material which, under ordinary
conditions, perishes in a comparatively short time.
Looking at these wonderful figures, of which we shall
examine a few of the most striking, remembering
that they are amongst the earliest specimens of art
of which we have any knowledge, and that any
approach to their actual date cannot be ascertained
nearer than within a lapse of time measured by
hundreds or even thousands of years, one is struck
with admiration and astonishment at the height of
their art, the perfection of their execution. We know,
without being able to account for the fact, that the
farther we go back in the history of the arts of ancient
Egypt — notably in the case of sculpture — the more
advanced appears to be the standard to which they had
attained. From this it would appear that the age
of perfection preceded the system of hieratic dogmatism
which, in the course of time, became established and
ruled by rigid laws. In these wooden figures, as in
thousands of other examples of all kinds, in stone
and bronze, statues and statuettes, figurines and bas*
reliefs, the individualism of the artist is most pro*
nouncedL There is evidence of an absolute liberty of
expression, of a rendering from nature drawn by the
personal observation of each individual artist. They
are portraits of men and women as they lived, in thue
surroundings amongst which their existence had been
6
IN ANCIENT EGYPT
passed. Whatever the material used, whether it be
wood or limestone, granite or bronze, the analogies
are so great that it would be difficult to consider
them apart, though the wood is naturally most nearly
approached to the figures in soft stone. All are of the
same type, with the same fidelity to nature, the same
lifelike expressions, the same evidence of the use of a
living model, the same attention to anatomical detail
and method of expressing it. For this method is not
a scientifically applied one, the result of established
canons of art which later ages produced. There is no
undue emphasis, no attempt at producing an artificial
effect, no idea of art in fact. Yet in its impression-
istic manner it suffices. Its naturalism is convincing,
expressed by an almost sketchy r6sum£ of the principal
lines and masses of the subject. It may be that those
whose acquaintance with the entire history of the rise
and progress of Egyptian art in all its branches is
profound, may find an easy solution of the problem
which seems to be involved in the consideration of
these wooden figures alone. Many questions suggest
themselves. What is the date assigned to the figure
of the Sheik el Beled? The fourth dynasty? At
how many thousands of years before our era is this
period to be placed? At any rate at some remote
period of man's existence on earth, at a period of
which we have no general history, still less a know-
ledge of the progress — we see here with astonish-
ment a system, a mannerism, instinctively adopted.
That is to say, that four thousand years at least before
our era we find in Egyptian sculpture an established
system of art at such a state of perfection that it
continues unchanged during these forty centuries.
By what successive stages, slow or quick, by what
teaching of principles or canons, by what laborious
evolution of technique it was accomplished, that is what
we are entirely ignorant about. We are able to study
WOOD SCULPTURE
in our museums — at any rate in the great museum at
Cairo — innumerable examples, ranging from shreds
and tatters to those possibly oldest figures of all, the
limestone Hetep and Nefert, as fresh and perfect as if
carved last week. But of the evolution of the creative
genius — nothing 1 Yet we are told by Egyptologists
that more than nine thousand years ago there flourished
in the valley of the Nile a school of free sculpture with
a genius surpassing our own. It is a great gap — three
thousand years !
The impression produced by these figures will be
different on the minds of some from that which is con-
veyed to others. For my own part I am unable to
reconcile the seeming evidence on the one hand of
untaught natural genius, on the other of the apparently
trained comprehension of principles. In Egypt the
practice of statuary is coeval with the earliest efforts in
decorative architecture. It would appear that man had
no sooner emerged from his primeval condition as a
pure savage than he exercised his imitative faculties
in an intelligent manner, and set about constructing
ideal types of beauty and of manly vigour, reproducing
the likenesses of everything that was in the heavens
above and in the earth below. Evidently the primitive
races would begin to model, and to model well, before
any principles of architecture had been evolved, and they
would have chosen wood, for its solidity, before clay.
With the earliest glimmering of religious sentiment,
and the first requirements for the construction of the
idols necessary in worship and ceremonial, there would
have been a tendency to the establishment of hieratic
laws, and of a kind of pictorial language for which no
very high degree of perfection in expression would have
been necessary. Certain types would have been formed,
and perpetuated by transmission from age to age, before
the idea occurred of endeavouring to make a direct
imitation of those which nature provided in every form
8
IN ANCIENT EGYPT
of life around. It was not always ignorance, or inability
to do better, which produced the archaic groups and
figures which we associate in a general way with the
monuments of ancient Egypt. It was deliberate choice
guided if not dictated by hieratic prescription. And so we
find in statues and bas-reliefs certain conventions in con-
junction with considerable skill in rendering the human
form and the suggestion of movement. The body is
fronting, the head in profile: the whole weight is thrown
on the soles of the feet; one foot is generally advanced, the
right in the case of men, the left of women and children,
and so on. As time went on two currents were formed
and proceeded on two different principles. The one
rigidly adhered to the precepts and dogmas imposed
by hieratism ; the other, which finally triumphed, was
in the direction of emancipation from these trammels
and restrictions. But, in accordance with the laws of
evolution which Nature causes to be repeated over
and over again, in art as in more important matters,
the triumph, or arrival at perfection, is followed by
decadence. The early loyal efforts at faithfully repro-
ducing nature little by little induce suggestions of what
she teaches. We learn to appreciate the ideal, and
little by little the highest perfection of its expression
is arrived at, only to fall again, little by little, without
pausing for a moment until, as an anticlimax, imitative
realism is the miserable result. It is not without
reason that a question of too great importance to be
followed in a single chapter has been hinted at. It is
not only in this early history of peoples that we have
to remark this phenomenon, this unchangeable law.
In one form or other we shall encounter it repeated
over and over again as we pass under review the arts
of many nations from the times when we are in
possession of evidence of their beginnings under
conventional forms held captive by the restraints of
priestly domination, until emancipation from these
WOOD SCULPTURE
restrictions leads to the free study of nature herself.
We shall be confronted everywhere by evidences of
the forces of the hieratism of convention opposed by
the struggle to represent beauty as it is in nature,
unrestrained by the trammels of tradition. And no
sooner is the height of beauty in the ideal reached
than it is followed by decline and degradation and the
change to a completely new system, which in its turn
follows the same path. Early sculptural art in Egypt
seems to have possessed a considerable amount of
originality and understanding of nature, bound though
it was by hieratic laws, even if less rigidly than they
were imposed later on. In our own history the sub-
jection to theocratic doctrines and the imposition of
traditions by priests held peremptory sway during a long
succession of centuries. The emancipation began only
when Gothic art was nearing its apogee, and reached
absolute freedom with the triumph of the Renaissance,
Ancient Egyptian statues and statuettes, when not
representing deities, are— in whatever material— with-
out exception, portraits of individuals executed with
the utmost exactness and fidelity to the prevailing
characteristics and habits of life of the person whose
memory it was desired to preserve. We are not called
upon to follow here, in any detailed way, the manners
and customs of the people. It is sufficient to remem-
ber that all these statues found in the tombs are, as it
were, the ' doubles ' of the deceased personage whose
embalmed body lies in the decorated cartonnage case
and massive sarcophagus. Briefly stated, the idea was
that the spirit, separated at death from the body, required
a material support of some kind for the continuance of
its existence or at least some kind of local habitation.
The body itself was preserved by embalming ; other-
wise the soul would die a second and definite death.
And as the mummy itself might disappear, it was
represented by one or more statues — exact representa-
10
STATUES IN TOMBS
tions of the dead — by which life was perpetuated. We
may gather, indeed, that these reproductions had to be,
as far as possible, absolute facsimiles of the form of the
deceased, with no concessions in the elimination of
imperfect features, no attempt at the ideal, no flattery in
exaggeration of beauty and expression : in short, a real
body in stone or wood as the case might be, with more
than photographic detail. Thus could a second him-
self, clothed as he was clothed, in his most accustomed
attitude, wearing the insignia of his rank, or bearing the
usual instruments of his occupation, take his place in the
tomb as the familiar resting-place of the soul." Are they
then works of art ? It is a question perhaps not difficult
to answer. But we may be sure that they must have
been posed during life and the result of long observa-
tion. And it is because there is evidence in them of
appreciation and of capability of seizing salient points
and of omitting the unimportant in a masterly manner
— whether intuitive or acquired by training we know
not — because of this impressionism, that we should
place them on so high a level. For we must not
assume that the copying was so very exact and mechani-
cal. On the contrary, the artist knew how to emphasize
by exaggeration. He knew, for example, the import-
ance of the eye, as the key to character, as the messenger
of thought from the brain. We are struck at once in such
statues as that of the sheik, or especially of the scribe, in
that of the princess Nefert, and in all those which are
really portraits, with the vitality of the head, the reality
of the expression. In those in wood with which we are
now particularly occupied, the size and power of the eye
was heightened by means of an artificial one, an inlay
of coloured marble, or some vitreous substance. The
Egyptians, it is true, were in the habit of increasing
the apparent size in life by the use of kohl, and the
exaggeration is to be found in all their portraiture, in
the admirable funeral masks and the like, and even in
n
WOOD SCULPTURE
the colossal granite statues which represent, if they are
not strictly, portraits of the rulers. What is not to be
forgotten is that it is held that our wood and other
statues are older still by centuries than any of the
colossi. Still, in dating them, we cannot be guided
solely by our artistic perception. We are at the mercy
of the Egyptologist and must accept his ruling. Other-
wise we might ask for evidence of tendencies to idealiza-
tion, and conclude that Egypt must have long been at
the height of her civilization before her art had arrived
at such a conception. And when we come to reckon
with such figures as the sheik or the scribe we feel
that the sculptor must have been perfectly well aware
of the impossibility of translating into wood or stone
that which has other qualities : that his method implied
convention, that he could only succeed in conveying an
impression, that all he could give was petrified life and
arrested motion. The statue in wood known as the
Sheik el Beled was discovered by Marietta in one of
the tombs of the necropolis of Memphis. It may be
taken as a type of the Egyptian of the period, but so
little has this changed in the course of sixty centuries
or more, that we are told that no sooner was it seen by
the native workmen engaged in making the excavation,
than they cried out, 'It is the sheik of the village!'
And so, whoever he may have been in life, and wnat-
ever his occupation, that is now, and always will be, his
designation,
A short description only will be required to supple-
ment the illustration here given (Frontispiece), He
stands solidly planted on both feet, holding* with raised
left hand his long staff or walking-stick^ head cropped
close (perhaps for the addition of a wig), fat, jolly face,
rather low forehead ; short, thick nose ; intelligent,
obedient eyes ; quiet, contented smile, as if resigned to
his position as a minor local official ; broad shoulders ;
prominent, fleshy breast; hips, arms, and legs too solidly
12
METHODS OF COLOURING
constructed, and furnished with an indication of tre-
mendous muscular development ; long, flat feet, admir-
able suggestion of movement in the easy and natural
pose as if stopping for the moment — that is the man
known sometimes also as Ra-em-Ke, the name of the
owner or inhabitant of the tomb. It is the art of the
nude, and art of an advanced kind, whether of natural
genius or by training. Either hypothesis is tenable.
The question of the colouring of sculpture will form
later on an important section of our subject The
practice was certainly prevalent in the earliest art of
Egypt, and may be briefly referred to here with regard
to such figures as the one just described. It was,
indeed, usual to colour men figures red or a deep
reddish brown, the women yellow, more or less deep
according to their lower or higher social position, repre-
senting, as it were, delicacy of complexion. Generally
speaking, it may be said that in the painting of
sculpture the Egyptians either had no knowledge of,
or did not care for, the use of tone. It may be that
they disdained an attempt at absolute imitation, and
were satisfied with a conventional treatment without
break or shadow. The seated scribe of the Louvre is
coloured a uniform red of equal value. His eyes, as
we find also in wood figures, are formed of an opaque
white quartz, in which is set the pupil of clear rock
crystal, and this is again surrounded by eyebrows and
eyelashes of engraved bronze. For wood, the work
was covered with fine linen closely adhering by means
of some colloid to every portion of the surface, and
upon this was a layer of thin plaster upon which colour
was applied on the same principle as in the case of
stone. The system is, in fact, identical with that of
the Middle Ages, and, as we shall see, described by the
monk Theophilus and Cennino Cennini thousands of
years later- We cannot here examine at length a
number of examples, even of those in one museum,
WOOD SCULPTURE
alone. It must suffice to confine our attention to a few
which are typical. A fragment of a figure, as far as
somewhat below the waist— probably of a slave — is also
in the Cairo Museum. The head, with the hair or a wig
carefully curled, is no less powerfully executed than that
of the sheik. It is ascribed to the fifth dynasty. Eton
College possesses a fragment of a figure representing
an old slave, with completely bald head, of the time of
the first Theban empire. Finally, in the museum of
the Louvre is a beautiful statuette of the priestess Toui.
It is of a dark polished wood, of a fine grain : of acacia,
sycamore, or of the Egyptian locust-wood perhaps, for
all these were used, together with ebony, sometimes
plain, sometimes coloured and gilt. Of charming pro-
portions, clothed in a thin transparent robe, she wears
a magnificent thickly tressed ceremonial wig, such as we
find so commonly in much earlier times. For we have
arrived now at the eighteenth dynasty, two thousand
years later than the scribe, and still there is no differ-
ence in style or in technique.
It is not only, however, great sculpture and figures
in the round which call for attention amongst these
ancient wood sculptures. There are also numberless
bas-reliefs which cannot be particularized. We are
compelled by limits of space to confine ourselves
in the main to generalities. But there is also some
quite small work which is often so fine in char-
acter that it is impossible to pass it over. These
are the carved spoons for perfumes and the little toilet
ornaments and utensils which are to be found in
many museums. The handles of the spoons are carved
with human figures and with a variety of motives of
the most fascinating description. We find, for instance,
in the Louvre, the graceful nude figure of a young girl
swimming, and holding a waterfowl ; another, walking
in a lotus-grove, and gathering a bud. The Liverpool
Museum possesses a delightful figurine which appears
14
FIGURE SCULPTURE
to be an article of toilet use, to contain perhaps kohl
or some ointment It is of a type which is not uncom-
mon also in alabaster or terra-cotta : a man, bending
under the weight of a huge vase which he carries on
his back, one arm upraised behind him to support it,
the other hanging down or resting on his thigh : pre-
cisely, in fact, as we see a hammal at his task, in the
streets of Cairo to-day, climbing slowly and laboriously
the steep ascent to the citadel. It seems to be a
portrait from life of some slave, and M. Jean Capart,
who describes it (Revue arcMol., 4>me sdrie x. 372),
points out that the form of the handles of the vase,
confined to the eighteenth dynasty, allows us to be
precise as to date. Other examples of wood sculpture
of all kinds present themselves in profusion. Amongst
them a brief reference must be made to the remark-
able bas-reliefs on six panels of wood, found by
Mariette in a tomb of the third dynasty and now
in the Cairo Museum. They are portraits of the
deceased, one Hosi, and admitting the conventional
method of representation, the head in profile, the body,
and even the eye, as if standing full face, the intuitive
knowledge of art and the great cleverness of execu-
tion are surprising, at such a remote epoch. We are
not now, however, endeavouring to follow the history
of sculpture in Egypt even in this one branch of the
art, Snould we do so we should find the two currents
already alluded to, the ideal and the real, strongly illus-
trated- We should discover in the outline pictures on
the monuments of what a power of suggestion these
early artists were capable* As an example, there is the
painter colouring a statue, from Thebes (see Cham-
poUion^late 1809. It is the art of leaving out, and we
must admit that the latest achievements of the French
caricaturist Sern, or our own Nicholson, have their
prototypes in these almost prehistoric times- We all
see things of this kind with different eyes, and may
WOOD SCULPTURE
or may not entirely agree with the observations made
by Mr. Flinders Petrie in his History of Egypt.
But they are very much to the point "^ He says :
' The sculptor's work and the painter's show the same
sentiment — a rivalry of nature. They did not make a
work of art to please the taste as such, but they rivalled
nature as closely as possible : the form, the expression,
the colouring, the glittering transparent eye, the grave
smile, all are copied as if to make an artificial man.
The painter mixed his half-tints and his delicate shades
and dappled over the animals or figured the feathers of
the birds in a manner never attempted in the later ages.
The embalmer built up the semblance of the man in
resins and cloth over his shrunken corpse to make him
as nearly as possible what he was when alive. In each
direction man, then, set himself to supplement, to
imitate, to rival, or to exceed the works of nature. Art,
as the gratification of an artificial taste and standard,
was scarcely in existence, but the simplicity, the vast-
ness, the perfection and the beauty of the earliest works,
place them on a different level to all works of art and
man's device in later ages. They are unique in their
splendid power, which no self-conscious civilization
has ever rivalled, or can hope to rival, and in their
enduring greatness they may last till all the feebler
works of man have perished/
We are led, then, if only by the consideration of
the few examples of the art of wood sculpture which
limitations of space permit us to pass in review, -to
questions of very great interest. But with regard to
these questions no certain answer is forthcoming.
Hypotheses and theories are not wanting, it is true,
but we can come to no definite conclusion. It would
appear that at a time so remote as the period of the
fourth dynasty — shall we say four thousand years before
Christ? — the civilization of Egypt had arrived at its
highest point, and that perhaps another four thousand
16
REALISM AND ARCHAICISM
years had passed during which the progress of this
civilization and the evolution of the arts had been going
on. It would appear, also, that the earliest works of
art of which we have any knowledge are, as Mariette
has said, fine in themselves and no less fine if com-
pared with the work of dynasties which are supposed
to represent the most flourishing ages of Egypt. The
most striking feature of this earliest art is its intense
realism : the understanding of and fidelity to nature
even when conventionally expressed. It would appear,
further, that, at the beginnings of the fourth dynasty,
art was dependent on and strongly influenced by
religion, its ceremonies and hieratism. As in the west,
thousands of years later, all art was religious art, at
least in an extended sense. We cannot, however, be
certain that we are in possession, now, of the finest art
of all. There may yet be in store for us, to be revealed
by further discoveries, still greater surprises. So far
as we can judge at the present time the earlier the art,
the greater are the evidences of refinement, whether
from instinct, from a long process of training or im-
ported by some conquering race, we know not. And,
further, that somewhere about the time when documents
become abundant, there was a period of decadence
forming a temporary break.
NThe remains of ancient Greek or Roman art in
wood which have come down to us are so few that
hardly more than a bare reference can be made to
them. No doubt the earliest attempts in the awaken-
ing civilizations of these peoples were, as elsewhere,
rude resemblances to the human figure. The begin-
nings of art of this kind have always followed a like
tendency: something more in the nature of a repre-
sentative symbol than an effort to reproduce an actual
likeness. Beauty, for the pleasure it might give, was
not thought of. So far as our knowledge goes, the
extreme archaicism of the early Hellenic religious
B i?
WOOD SCULPTURE
sculptures was intentional The national museum at
Naples possesses a wooden image of Diana which
sums up the retention of this deliberately intended
feeling. It has been called the ' Diana of the archaic
smile/ And, amongst other rare examples, is a seated
statuette, in wood, of a goddess with a child on her lap,
which was found about 1872 in a tomb at Troussepoil,
in Vendde. The group, nearly three feet in height, in
attitude and expression and draperies, bears a remark-
able resemblance to the Madonna statuettes of the
Romanesque period, and perhaps explains the legends
of miraculous images found from time to time (see
Melanges arch£ologiques> 1885). In this connexion a
passing reference may be made to the groups of Isis
and Horus, of which an interesting example in ivory
— so like wood that it is not easy to say whether it is
so or not — is in the Egyptian gallery of the British
Museum.
18
CHAPTER II
WOOD SCULPTURE IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES
AND LATER
THE perishable nature of wood has already been
noticed. If we may add to this its small
intrinsic value, the want of consideration
from which decorative work of any kind must suffer as
fashions change, and the recurring vandalism which
seems to be a law of nature, it is not surprising that
our information concerning the art of sculpture in
wood, even of our own early era, should be so scanty.
In the turbulent times of which we know so little,
excepting that men's chief occupations were strife and
tumult — in the Dark Ages as we call them — the goods
of the Church were the only ones respected, and even
these suffered. Some ivories have come down to us per-
haps because they could be turned neither into money
nor fuel. But wood — it was burnt or left to kick about
in garrets as fashions changed, to become worm-eaten,
rotten, and powdered I Even in the most recent times,
many of us can remember how the to-day so highly
prized Chippendale furniture could be bought for a
song, and was considered fit only for the nursery or
the attic Such a thing as an example of Norman
furniture could not be found in England, and anything
earlier than the thirteenth century is of extreme
rarity. We do not even know the name of a single
English furniture-maker or carver of Elizabeth's time.
In England, in France, in the Netherlands, revolu-
tionary and reformation troubles caused destructions of
WOOD SCULPTURE
the most sweeping kind. The churches were the only
museums of those times, and they themselves were the
first to suffer from the insensate fury of iconoclasts.
Thus it is that we can hardly pretend to begin any
history at all before, at earliest, the eleventh century.
There are, it is true, preserved in various collections,
certain archaic rarities with traces of decoration, such
as the coffin of St. Cuthbert at York, the reading-desk
of St. Radegonde,1 in the convent of Sainte-Croix at
Poitiers, some gates and doorways in France and
Italy, or the Romanesque sculptures of the Christiania
Museum. The last named are the twelfth-century
doorways of churches, of which there are reproductions
in the gallery of casts at Kensington, and there are also
some arm-chairs and other furniture with a decoration
of a similar character.
The reading-desk of Saint Radegonde — if we are
really justified in assigning to it such an early
date as the sixth century in which she lived — is,
of course, a precious monument, on account of its
unique position as an example of wood-carving of
the time. With regard to the character of the decor-
ation, this is merely an application of themes and
sculptural methods derived from the sarcophagi of
the fifth and sixth centuries in Italy and southern
Gaul, and may have been executed three or four
centuries later (see MdL d'archfol, iii. 78), The vine-
wood doors of the church of Santa Sabina in Rome
have already been referred to in my * Ivories ' of
this series (p. 252). They are usually ascribed to the
sixth century, but the whole subject involves so much
that is debatable and connected with early Christian
1 St. Radegonde, wife of the French King Clotaire. She founded the
abbey, or nunnery, of Poitiers, which she called the Holy Cross, on account of
a relic of the true Cross which she caused to be preserved there, The Normans
in England had a great devotion to her, and there were several churches and
convents under her dedication ; notably the one at Cambridge, which, at the
reformation, became the present Jesus College.
20
SCANDINAVIAN ART
art generally that I shall content myself with their bare
mention. It is extremely doubtful that they should be
given so early a date, notwithstanding their close
analogy with the sarcophagus style. The reader may
be referred, for an erudite notice concerning them, to
the paper by M. Kondakov in the Revise Archdologique,
N.S., xxxiii. 360. It is right to observe that such
an authority as Molinier had no doubt that they are
Roman work of the early sixth century, and by no
means due to sculptors working under Greek influences
of a later date.
The Scandinavian doors (Plate I,) allow us to
form a very good idea of the kind of decoration in
sculptured wood of early mediaeval times. We find in
them the usual interlaced foliage work, with which
fantastic figures are intermingled, dear to the northern
races : a style which persisted so long that though we
may have grounds for an attribution to the twelfth
century they may well be later. A close examination
of the subjects drawn from old Norse mythology —
perhaps from the Nibelungen — would be most attrac-
tive. Amongst them we seem to have, for example,
Siegfried blowing the furnace, forging his arms, fighting
the dragon, and so on. The execution is admirable,
and has the further interest that the style is inspired
or borrowed from English or Celtic sources of the
eleventh or twelfth century. We must remember also
that Scandinavia was not evangelized until the eleventh
century, no long time before the date assigned to these
church doors* However this may be, they illustrate
the usual type of sculpture in wood of the Carlovingian
empire in the Romanesque period. There is nothing
original or peculiar to Scandinavia. The system is
borrowed from the prevailing fondness elsewhere for
convoluted foliage ornament twisted and knotted in
elegant curved lines symmetrically arranged and inter-
mingled with mythological figures and grotesques:
21
WOOD SCULPTURE
conventional, yet in a certain way realistic. We need
not here pursue its more remote oriental origin. With
regard to design and technique, a similar fashion is to
be found on other early doors, for example those of the
eleventh century of the cathedral at Puy. We have
here again, in the scenes of the life of our Lord, the
same system of deeply cut subjects in a style resem-
bling champlevd enamels, the surfaces quite flat without
any relief whatever, and the added colour, of which
there are traces, would make the resemblance still
closer. Other examples of the kind might be given,
and if we were to follow the subject still more closely
we should find that this kind of dug-out decoration in
wood — in chests for example — continued until quite
late times. We shall take note, later on, of the coffer
in the Cluny Museum of late thirteenth or early four-
teenth century work, but it will be an evidence of an
almost sudden awakening and of the beginning of
times when an entirely different character of ornament
will afford examples in profusion. In France the
earliest known piece of furniture is the armoire of the
church of Obazine (Corrfeze). It may possibly be
referred to the twelfth century, but it is almost entirely
unornamented. Our principal concern will be with the
madonna and crucifix figures. Of these some noble
specimens yield in no way, in merit and interest, to
those in other materials of pre-Gothic times. The con-
dition of Europe, and indeed of what constituted the
civilized world at the time now occupying our atten-
tion, offered but little opportunity for the cultivation of
the arts. It had hardly recovered from the terrible
anarchy^ produced by the invasion of barbarian hordes
in the eighth century which had covered it with ruins*
Men's attention was wholly absorbed by wars between
nations and disputes amongst powerful chieftains.
They had no time to trouble about the comforts and
luxuries of life. Those whose minds turned to religious
22
TWELFTH CENTURY
subjects were resigned to the idea that the time for
providing for future generations was past, and that the
year 1000 was an. ominous date, destined to see the end
of all things. It is, perhaps, more than a remarkable
coincidence that this period of anxiety should be
succeeded by one of greater tranquillity, and that the
arts of peace should, as it were, immediately enter upon
an era of activity. The very year 1000 gave the
signal for an enthusiasm in church-building. But
although in our own country the Norman invasion,
later on, brought with it the genius and feeling'for art
of another race, we were still far behind in that of
architecture and sculpture : in all the arts, indeed,
except those which were practised in the seclusion of
the monasteries, or in metallurgy, for which we had
the advantage of possessing rich stores of the necessary
materials. The twelfth century continued the advance,
and the coming of pointed architecture, which was
everywhere adopted, spurred on the cultivation of all
the arts, wood sculpture no less than the others. If,
then, we are forced to begin our history at compara-
tively so late a date as the eleventh century, it coincides
with a time when every industry was beginning to
awaken from the lethargy under which it had so long
stagnated. In the working and ornamentation of
wood the imagination of the artist was no longer
limited to always the same interlaced patterns mingled
with fabulous animals, the human figure characterized
with always the same stiffness, unnatural attitudes, and
monotonous gravity of expression. As the twelfth
century progresses, painters and sculptors gradually
begin to abandon the hieratic methods under which
they had hitherto worked. It is almost an art nouveau.
Where, in the older system, there was neither undiluted
realism nor idealism, but only the restrictions of a
traditional convention, there begins to be an approach
to an understanding of nature. Draperies are no
23
WOOD SCULPTURE
longer confined to a uniform system of long, straight,
and narrow folds, but the sacred personages begin
to wear an approximation at least to the costume
of the period which the artist had daily before his
eyes — this, of course, except in the case of the most
sacred of all. We are nearing the time of an absolute
revolution in architecture, when the Abbot Suger
builds his church of Saint Denis, when Chartres and
Reims uprear their famous facades, and when England
is in no ways behind other countries in enthusiasm and
accomplishment. And when we remember that the
great edifices had each and all to be filled with sculp-
ture in wood as well as in stone, and that the controller
of the whole was the master builder — or architect as we
should call him now — it will be seen that these general
references are not without importance in relation to
our particular subject. The more so because the func-
tions of the master builder were not limited to those
of the modern architect. He could and did carve
a statue or the capital of a pillar as well as plan and
measure and decide upon curves and angles, and
whatever may have been the freedom permitted to
individual sculptors, their part was entirely subordinate
to his conception of the whole work. The importance
of this consideration cannot be too much insisted upon.
We are, however, still confronted with a paucity
of examples in wood sculpture until the end of the
thirteenth century. But before we enter into the
succeeding one, when there will be much less reason
to complain, there are a certain number of statuettes,
especially of the Virgin and Child and of crucifix
figures, which are highly instructive. Throughout
the fourteenth century wood-carving follows the same
lines as the stone sculpture of the cathedrals. The vari-
ous departments of art are not specialized, the trained
workman is not confined to any particular branch.
Many are at once architects, painters, sculptors, image-
24
MEDIAEVAL
makers, huchers, or, as we should say, cabinet-makers.
And this condition of affairs continues to at least mid-
sixteenth century. Architecture and the architectural
completeness governed everything. Under the master
builder, retables, stalls, figures, and even such minor
accessories as thuribles and other sanctuary requisites,
were simply motives for decoration in accordance with
the general plan. All decorative work bore an archi-
tectural aspect. Even in furniture, chairs, tables and
benches, bedsteads and chests, were panelled with
window tracery, adorned with little buttresses and pin-
nacles, and, between the panels, with carved niches and
canopies : surmounted also, in the case of ceremonial
seats, or even of rich domestic furniture, with an
elaborately-carved dais. There was an overmastering
tendency to lavish ornament everywhere, not only
simply decorative ornament, but also pictorial and
didactic* There was a propensity in the choirs of
cathedrals, and even of parish churches, to an over-rich
display, which took the place of the refined simplicity
which had characterized the previous age. We shall
see this at its culmination at the close of the fifteenth
century, when the aim seemed to be to employ all the
resources of the wood-carver's skill in the production of
a veritable encyclopaedia of the arts and sciences, and
of religion, together with an epitome of the domestic
life, manners, and customs of the time. This meant,
indeed, the whole science of theology, for theology
embraced all knowledge, and the method of imparting
it to the illiterate people was by means of these great
illustrated books which every one could read. The
language was the language of symbolism, and the
imagery was drawn from every conceivable source,
both sacred and profane; from the romances of
chivalry or the mystical bestiaries of the thirteenth
century. The transformation effected by the end of
the fourteenth century was complete, but we shall not
25
WOOD SCULPTURE
attempt to trace it to all its sources and in every land.
Italy had not yet begun to exercise the special influence
which, a century later, was to become so powerful and
far-reaching in the creation of an entirely new system,
It is to Flanders that our attention will be drawn
over and over again in succeeding chapters. It is true
that the courts of Philip vi., of John IL, or of Charles v.
were centres of all the arts, but the chief impulse was
given by such masters as Claus Sluter, or Andr6
Beauneveu, and by such work as i\&puits de Moise at
Dijon. The artistic relations between the Netherlands
and the Courts of Philip the Bold and of Philip the
Good, and the fusion later on with the house of
Austria, have an important relation with our subject.
Indeed, during the three centuries or so with which we
shall be more particularly interested, we shall meet the
Fleming at every turn. We shall not be able to
neglect him even in his painting. The influence of
painting upon sculpture may be indirect, and it cannot
be said that a school of the one creates a school of the
other, yet it may act very powerfully upon it, as will
presently be insisted upon. We shall find, then, the
Fleming almost cosmopolitan in his character. By
nature homely, and a lover of his own chimney-corner,
he is industrious, and as a bread-winner has no hesita-
tion in expatriating himself, and even in attaching him-
self to another nationality. And so we find him now
Burgundian, now a Frenchman, now German, now so
far a Spaniard that we have to deduce his origin by his
Flemish name disguised in Spanish form. In our own
country we owe to him the Angel choir of Lincoln, one
amongst many evidences of the employment by us of
Flemish artists during at least five centuries of the
greatest activity in the arts in England, The produc-
tions of the wood-carver's skill of Brussels or of
Antwerp enjoyed a world-wide reputation, and were
exported to every other country. Had it not been for
26
MEDIAEVAL
the destructions at the Reformation our churches would
probably even now abound in triptychs and retables
and roods from these celebrated workshops. One of
the difficulties in our study of the evolution of the art
of wood-carving will be to recognize that as centuries
progress changes are rarely sudden. One style sup-
plants another almost imperceptibly. Innovations
would not be accepted at once, and time would have
been required before the newer system triumphed.
Nor would changes have occurred simultaneously in
every district : even in the same town the old fashion
would have kept its admirers. Therefore it is that
style is not always evidence of date. It would not be
easy to make a just comparison between the refinement
of the thirteenth century, the progress accomplished in
the fourteenth, and the new spirit of the Renaissance in
the fifteenth. There was in fact, in the fourteenth
century, a pause which was marked, a halt in prepara-
tion for the spring forward which was to follow. Dur-
ing that interval there was an indulgence in a kind of
extravagance. The art was less refined, less spiritually
inspired, with more dexterity, perhaps, than perfection
in execution. A new era had opened in the gradual
emancipation from religious domination. Craftsmen
were formed into corporations, and the hieratic rule of
the monastery lost its autocratic power. So long as
the arts proceeded along lines rigidly marked out by
dogma and tradition, the free study of nature was kept
in check. But the increase of luxury made its wants
felt in another direction. The laity now began to have
a say in the matter. And so there came about a freer
system which required a different organization of
labour. Huchers and joiners separated from the ordi-
nary working carpenter, and those with natural apti-
tudes for that line began to study ornament for its own
sake. The demands on their talent were no longer
exclusively confined to the requirements of the altar,
27
WOOD SCULPTURE
although even for the decoration of the sumptuous
furniture of the rich man's house they knew no other
theme than that inspired by religion. The great artists
of this period of awakening were pioneers, the results
of whose efforts on emancipation soon became manifest
in every land. An understanding of art thus catered
for seems to have been innate, in those days, in the
meanest of people. What the public was capable of
appreciating found an ever ready supply. Art was
vulgarized in the best sense of the term. It became a
necessity to the inhabitants of the smallest hamlet. If
it was to be found at its highest amongst those who
worked in the great capitals, or for princely mansions,
the village carpenter, in his untrained way, possessed
an unconscious perception of its canons, and he was
successful in applying them because he could both
design and execute. Yet still, and for two centuries
longer, the great abbeys were the source from which
everything proceeded. They were the inspirers and
the directing force. As the Rule of the great Bene-
dictine order had provided, so it was stilh Every
monk was not obliged to be an artist, but every
monastery was a hive of artistic industry, a workshop
of trained architects, illuminators, calligraphists, sculp-
tors and carvers in stone and wood, founders and
chasers, and enamellers, in iron and bronze and in the
precious metals. They were the instructors and they
set the tune, even if their pupils were less dependent
upon them than formerly. Our thoughts in this
direction naturally turn to our special subject, and it is
difficult to avoid a certain amount of generalization
which may not in every case be strictly accurate. We
find in wood sculpture, as in the minor arts as a rule,
little evidence of originality of conception. The artist's
themes were found for him, and their arrangement
followed the traditionary methods. They had the
work of the masters of sculpture in stone to inspire
28
MEDIEVAL
them, and their task was to transpose into the key of
wood that which had originally been phrased to suit
the needs and qualities of another medium of expres-
sion. Nor can it be said that they were always
successful, and this, indeed, because their art was not
specialized. In the fifteenth century we arrive at a
more intelligent effort to understand the human form,
and to follow its study : a study which monastic senti-
ment had so long barred and proscribed. The great
effect which resulted was in the treatment of draperies.
To this subject we shall have more than once again to
turn our attention. Early Christian and early medi-
aeval art disliked and entirely neglected the body as a
form of beauty. The head alone received attention,
the use of drapery was to conceal the human figure.
It fell in long straight folds and hid even the feet
In Italy, up to the end of the twelfth century, the
sculptural arts had fallen into complete decadence, and
even in the early days of the thirteenth she was still in
arrear of other nations. But a movement was prepar-
ing which was not to be without its effect upon the
particular subject with which we are concerned* We
shall consider presently, even if it must be in a some-
what restricted manner, sculpture in wood of the great
schools of the trecento and quattrocento of Pisa, of
Florence, and of Siena, and we shall be able to include
amongst those who practised the craft the names of the
greatest masters of sculpture of those glorious times.
Again, we shall find that there was no exclusiveness,
and that a close connexion existed between the painter
and sculptor and worker in the precious metals.
The early history of sculpture in France is vague,
and we have little to show in wood. The Gaulish pro-
vinces, after the Roman conquest, suffered, as elsewhere
in Europe, from the invasions and oppressions of the
conquerors, and little chance was left for the peaceful
arts* Their refuge was in, or in the neighbourhood of,
29
WOOD SCULPTURE
the great monasteries, and there, no doubt, were estab-
lished the only schools for the practice of wood and
ivory carving. Later on we shall find examples in
profusion to show that the wood sculptors of France
were as distinguished as those in other branches.
Paris became the centre, and, at least up to the
fifteenth century, was the instructor in the arts of the
whole of Europe. But, as in the case of ivories, we
have little precise information and no names. Or if,
as is probable, we may take it that the ivory carvers
worked also in wood, it is to them that we must go to
include a Jean le Scelleur, who in 1315 was employed
for Philip the Long, a Jean le Brailleur, the ivory
carver of Charles v., a Jehan de Couilly, or a Jean de
Marville at the Court of Burgundy. But that court
will supply us with some names of notable carvers of
Flemish origin of very great importance. Other royal
inventories show also the esteem in which the wood-
carver's art was held ; for instance, in that of Charles v.
there is mention of * tableaux istoriez, crucefilz, ymages
de bois, un de quatre pieces que Girard d'Orl&ms fist/
and in the inventory of Philippe le Bon wood figures
are entered under 'ymages d'or et d'argent'
In Germany we shall be mostly concerned with the
wood-carving of quite late mediaeval times, at a period
of transition when the tide of the Renaissance was flow-
ing fast and rapidly changing the condition of things
which had so long continued. We shall find two dis-
tinct regions, that of the north where vast forests of
oak prevailed, and that of the south where softer and
more resinous woods were also used- It is to the work
of the southern masters, to the schools of Wiirtemberg,
of Wiirzburg, of Rothenburg or Niirnberg, and of
Suabia generally, bordering on Italy and Switzerland,
that attention will be chiefly directed.
In Spain, wood-carving, always in a flourishing
condition in the early Middle Ages, continued to be
30
VARIETIES USED
none the less so in later Gothic times and through-
out the period of the Renaissance. If, at the end of
the fifteenth century and beginning of the sixteenth,
the prevailing fashion as exemplified in the choir
stalls of that period is frankly French, and if the
designers and carvers of so many magnificent choirs
and retables have French, and, especially, Flemish
names, they worked in conjunction with Spanish
artists. But the art they display is a borrowed and not
a national one, and so it must be considered. Yet it is
Spanish.
In England we are met by even a greater penury of
existing examples than elsewhere, and although in
Gothic times the fabrics of our great cathedrals, abbeys,
and parish churches attest that we possessed a national
art in no way inferior to other countries — in some
styles taking the lead — yet the destructions of the
reformers and Puritans have left us in wood sculpture
almost nothing. Practically, we can show only the
choirs and choir stalls, chancel screens and bench ends,
and the splendid roof-work, so peculiarly English.
Happily, these still exist in not inconsiderable numbers.
Without the aid of wood few arts would be possible,
and in itself its peculiar qualities make it applicable to
every form of sculptural decoration. The sole fault
with which we can reproach it is the liability to decay.
No material is more amenable to the chisel or graver.
The varieties are very numerous, and its own natural
colours and capability of high polish demand, of
necessity, nothing additional. It is no part of the plan
of this book to enter generally into the natural history
of the various kinds of wood, but a few brief
remarks concerning those which have been generally
used in decorative sculpture will not be out of place.
Oak, of course, has ever been the most popular,
especially amongst ourselves in mediaeval times. In
the German schools, also, of the end of the fifteenth
3*
WOOD SCULPTURE
century — at Calcar, Xanten, and other great centres of
the northern division, oak was almost exclusively
used, In France the northern schools remained
'faithful to it long after some softer woods were
employed in more southern regions. Indeed, one may
say, generally, that oak is an infallible sign of northern
workmanship, walnut of the provinces south of Bur-
gundy. But there is no rule without exceptions, and
in later times, in the schools of Philibert de I'Orme,
Pierre Lescot, Jean Goujon, Germain Pilon or Ducer-
ceau, in the lie de France, and in the provinces
bordering on the Loire, walnut was exclusively used.
So also with regard to the Lyonese schools in
Burgundy, Auvergne, and Dauphin^, oak furniture
is to be found. But walnut was certainly the fashion-
able wood of the Renaissance, of the times of
Louis xu. and Francis i. Nearly all the great Bur-
gundian pieces of this period are in walnut. Again, in
Italy, the same wood with its beautiful grain and rich
colour and hard close texture, besides possessing a
variety peculiar to the country, and in great profusion,
was the favourite for her magnificent choir stalls* Fig-
tree was occasionally used in Italy, and corkwood, for
its lightness. There are, for instance, a life-sized
statue of the flagellation in the church of S. Giovanni
al Monte, Bologna, and a St. Sebastian in the Salting
collection at South Kensington of the first-named wood,
and crucifix figures to which reference is made later
on, in corkwood. Walnut, indeed, has always been a
favourite, especially in southern countries. The
Spanish wood-carver was naturally partial to it, for it
has always been common in his country, and oak on
the contrary scarce and necessary to be imported- The
early Spanish carvers, even long after the Moors had
been driven out, used the wood of the cedar, cypress,
pine, and other resinous varieties ; the pine of Cuentja
being particularly esteemed*
VARIETIES USED
The immense pine forests of Germany will, of course,
prepare us to find this wood largely employed, and
we shall come across some remarkable panels in the
museum at Kensington of the south Bavarian school
of the fifteenth century. From the nature of the grain
and arrangement of the fibres it was best adapted for
flat or not very high relief; for coffers and panels
rather than statues and statuettes. We may recall
also the Scandinavian doors previously described.
Boxwood has peculiar qualities which distinguish
it from almost every other wood. Unfortunately
it is not to be obtained in pieces of any but compara-
tively small dimensions. Notwithstanding this, the
examples of figure work, in boxwood, to which we shall
come presently, are masterpieces which stand in a dis-
tinct category, and from this point of view are not to be
surpassed amongst the whole range of sculpture which
forms our subject. Some, indeed, will hold their own
in comparison with the statuettes of bronze and other
figure work of the periods to which they belong.
Beech, elm, yew, and chestnut — if not so commonly
selected — might all be illustrated by examples.
Mahogany was not known in mediaeval times, nor did
the sculptor appear to have any leaning towards the
woods with ornamental grains such as maple or satin-
wood. For marquetry these, of course, would appeal,
but the prevailing fashion of adding colour to all
sculpture in whatever material, to which attention will
be drawn in a succeeding chapter, would have been
one reason, amongst others, for neglect. Sycamore and
acacia, tamarisk, cedar, rosewood, and, for inlay, sandal-
wood were favourite woods of the sculptor in ancient
Egypt, and, in the days of the highest civilization of
Greece and Rome, we learn from such writers as
Pausanias the lavish use of ebony, cypress, cedar, oak,
sycamore, yew, willow, ash, beech, maple, hornbeam,
plane, mulberry, lemon, palm, holly, poplar, walnut, and
C 33
WOOD SCULPTURE
pear. But, indeed, every existing wood has doubtless
served the purpose more or less at one time than
another. Lime is a soft wood, pliable to the tool, not
given to splintering, and taking a stain well, that we
shall meet very frequently indeed in the work of the
Franconian sculptors of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries : in the figure work of Veit Stoss and
Riemenschneider and their contemporaries. In Eng-
land we find it very commonly used for the imitative
festoons of garlands, fruit, and bird-life of Grinling
Gibbons and his school. The white description which
they selected is, however, peculiarly subject to the
attacks of insects, and the gum or glaze with which
the finished work was covered preventing their escape,
the result was that in numerous cases the whole interior
was eaten away, leaving mere shells or skeletons*
Pearwood also was a favourite with the sixteenth-
century statuette carvers. It is light, close grained,
moderately hard, and not given to warp or split,
Harrison, in his description of English woods and
marshes in Holinshed's Chronicles, written in 1577,
speaks of houses formerly built of sallow, willow,
plum, hardbeam, and elm, in which men were content
to dwell, and that 4 oak was in manner dedicated wholly
unto churches, religious houses, princes' palaces, noble-
men's lodgings, and navigation : but now all these are
rejected, and nothing but oak any whit regarded/
Bois (fislande is frequently mentioned in old French
and Flemish contracts. According to the statutes of
the corporation of charpentiers huckiers of Paris in
1382, this and walnut, ebony, pear, elm, maple, guelder,
and some others not easy to identify, were much used.
Regulations are very precise, showing the esteem in
which the craft was held, and how fine work was only
to be practised by masters. Care was taken that the
wood should be of the finest quality, thoroughly
seasoned, without knots or shakes, and that green
34
PRESERVATION FROM DECAY
ebony should not be used instead of black, nor pear,
nor other wood, instead. Yet of this hard lasting
ebony I do not know that a singlfe mediaeval example
could be found. The statutes of corporations are all
of the same character, lengthy and minute in detail,
and the same evidence of care in selection of material
and quality of the work will be found in such contracts
as that for a rood-loft for a remote Cornish parish which
elsewhere is here quoted.
The question of the preservation of wood-carvings
from decay is an important and interesting one. The
maladies to which the different kinds are liable vary,
of course, according to the several species : so also do
the attacks of the enemies to which they are subject
Chestnut was disliked and condemned by Wren, who
considered that it became rotten sooner than oak.
Yet the famous roof of Westminster Hall is made of
it. '" The question is one of technical interest. It will
suffice to mention that in 1855 a Royal Commission
was appointed to consider it. The evidence and report
may be consulted with profit.
It must be admitted, of course, that we have
few remains of wood sculpture to be compared with
the figures of Chartres, of Reims, or of Amiens, but it
may be remembered also that until full sixteenth
century, when the classical turn in taste was becoming
overmastering, this art exercised more general interest
than any other. It was the medium above all others
of appealing to the popular imagination and, after all,
popular taste in those days represented the nation to a
greater extent, in point of numbers and concentration
of classes, than it does now. Learning and an
appreciation of the refinement which characterized
the imagery of the thirteenth century would have been
confined to the few. This ultra-refinement was, no
doubt, for the court and the higher clergy. But the
mass of the people had provided for them a system of
35
WOOD SCULPTURE
education which, whether it approached near to or fell
far short of the greater sculpture in stone, undoubtedly
was the means of keeping up a high standard of taste
amongst them. What still remains for our admiration
is evidence, when we consider the facilities it offers for
decay and destruction, that at one time the abundance
must have been almost incredible. With the dis-
appearance of the multitude of images in this material
coincided — account for it as we may — the decline in
general taste. From the other side of the mountains
came the invasion of classical ideas which demanded
marble as the great medium of plastic expression.
Great, no doubt, was this art, unsurpassed in its appeal
to the intellect, but it was caviare to the general Wood
and even stone were abandoned : wood was good
enough for the cabinet-maker, and to him it was
relegated. With it died also the age of colour in
sculpture.
Besides the question of durability, the paucity of
early examples of wood sculpture may be accounted for
by causes from which all sculpture had suffered in
common with the other arts, owing to the unsettled
state of the western world. There had been everywhere
almost a total want of originality, a copying from
antique bas-reliefs by men who in artistic intelligence
were hardly above the level of the artisan. It was
not until the close of the eleventh century that a
real awakening of the sculptural arts begins to be
apparent. Then came the crusades and the intercourse
with the east. Workmen of all kinds accompanied
the armies and brought home with them the oriental
systems of ornament, which they adapted to their already
existing methods and national feeling. Syria was able
to furnish friezes, bas-reliefs, the capitals of columns
and other architectural details, and figure work, but for
pure statuary there was no indebtedness. It will not
be wholly without value to remind ourselves of the
36
MEDIEVAL
capture of Antioch and Jerusalem, and of the virtual
occupation of the Holy Land in the first crusade, of
the second crusade preached by St. Bernard, of the third
under our own King Richard, of the fourth, and of the
fifth which will bring us to the fall of Constantinople
in the third year of the thirteenth century. During all
this time the influence of the monastic establishments
on the arts was gradually diminishing and guilds were
organizing. They were the true revivalists who re-
stored the art of sculpture to the position it had lost :
a restoration which, though apparently a sudden one
about the beginning of the twelfth century, had no
doubt been prepared for by long years of persistent
training. The Cluniac order, already established more
than a century, was the most active centre, and exercised
a powerful influence on the arts of the whole region of
the west. It was the most learned, if not indeed the
only, order of the time really learned in the arts. Its
houses covered France and Spain, and at a later period
Italy, Germany, and England, while at the same time
its relations with the east were constant. We should
expect then to find in those examples of wood sculpture
that can be adduced, the influence of Byzantine hieratism,
and the conventional systems of draperies. It is not
easy to resume in a few words these influences, nor
should an undue weight be given to those resulting
from the operations of the crusades. Other causes had,
since a long period, caused an immense influx of Greek
monks into Europe, who had brought with them
manuscripts and other works of Byzantine art, and the
commercial relations with Italy— with Venice especially
—had helped to spread these things in Germany,
France, and England. The southern schools of France
— Limoges, Toulouse, Poitiers, Provence — and the
Rhine provinces were at the close of the eleventh
century absolutely Byzantine. We must suppose that,
in the wood-carving of those days, there were also those
37
WOOD SCULPTURE
long-limbed emaciated figures, pearl-bordered long
clinging robes and pointed shoes that we find in our
ivories. It is to the monks of Citeaux and of Cluny
that we owe the beginnings of an observation of nature,
some attempts at least at dramatic movement, some
attention in their figures to the life which they saw
around them. It is indeed against these very methods
that St. Bernard fulminated his famous diatribe. The
statuary sculptor, turning to nature, had begun to draw
from it under idealized forms what he saw with his
eyes. It is the age of idealism which will lead, slowly
but surely, as suggested in the introductory chapter,
to realism. The monastic artists of the twelfth century
prepared the way by the partial emancipation at least
from Byzantine formulae. They must have contributed
the earliest impulse, for they alone were the instructors
and employers of labour. The beginning of the
thirteenth century was the beginning of a new order of
things. The control of art initiative has to pass out
from the cloister into the world. Lay corporations and
lay workers supersede the monk in the direction of
works, though still almost the only art is that which
is devoted to the service of religion. The courts of
kings and nobles are too much occupied with warlike
pursuits to make much demand for the luxuries of
domestic establishments. But a spirit of communism is
abroad. Guilds are established — trade unions in fact
— which bind themselves to obey codes of regulations
which they themselves have drawn up, instead of sub-
mitting to the orders of enclosed corporations, ignorant
of the life outside and of the demands which it is
beginning to make. Independent schools are formed,
entirely emancipated from the monastic yoke. It must,
however, be admitted that it is not easy to be absolutely
precise regarding the relations between these inde-
pendent workers and the great abbeys. The general
direction of architectural and sculptural work for the
38
MEDIAEVAL
use of the Church must still have been in the hands of
the latter, and the changes were gradual. But a more
settled condition of social life had begun to prevail
In the troublous dark ages, between the seventh and
eleventh centuries, the producers in every craft took
refuge under the shadow of the monasteries, where they
followed their apprenticeships and worked afterwards
in submission to what was the ruling power. Continual
wars and local strifes hindered any kind of artistic
activity among the mass of the people. With the new
era new ideas took the place of the former rigidity of
rules, and the freedom was everywhere welcomed, even
by the secular clergy. Yet, though the lay element
had come in, sculptor monks still moved about from
province to province, from country to country, and we
cannot be precise regarding the question how far this
or that work is peculiar to the locality in which it
appears to have been introduced. For direction, the
science must still have come from the learned, the
travelled ones of the monastery. Geometry, drawing,
the principles of Greek art, the science of symbolism
and the rest — all these it was their province to transmit
to the lay apprentice, who might then be left to his
individual inspiration. The lay artists, following, no
doubt, the principles in which they had been educated,
enjoyed a greater amount of intellectual liberty, and
used their intelligence to discard whatever hide-bound
regulations they considered to be no longer up to date.
They wanted a freer choice of subject and of methods
of expressing it. One must imagine also that the
workmen moved about more freely from place to place,
forming themselves into bands under a master crafts-
man whenever they heard that some great work — as
for example the building of Canterbury— was in
progress.
39
CHAPTER III
THE THIRTEENTH, FOURTEENTH, AND FIFTEENTH
CENTURIES— GUILDS AND CORPORATIONS
AT the close of the twelfth and in the opening
years of the thirteenth century there was a
wave of enthusiasm, an immense activity in
church-building everywhere. Abundant liberality pro-
vided for the erection of imposing cathedrals in the cities,
of magnificent parish churches even in the most remote
districts and amongst sparse populations. The spirit
which was the real moving one in all this — in our own
country especially — has always been a difficult one to
account for. With every allowance made for the piety
of the age, there can be no doubt that it was largely due
to the development of civic life, the prosperity of trade
generally, the crusades and intercourse with the east,
and to a new-born understanding of, and enthusiasm
for, the industrial arts, which procured a call for their
employment, and a response to demands consequent on
increasing luxury and ideas of comfort. It was a
national movement. But the Church in those days was
the only centre of life and movement, and afforded the
chief medium of expression for the artistic tendencies
which had become so developed. If, then, there were
piety and a desire to beautify the house of God, there
was also an appeal to the judgment and admiration of
men, which in this regard had hitherto, in conformity
with monastic rules, been rigidly suppressed. As Dn
Jessopp writes : ' The immense treasures in the churches
40
GUILDS AND CORPORATIONS
were the joy and boast of every man, woman, and child
in England, who, day by day, and week by week,
assembled to worship in the old houses of God which
they and their fathers had built, and whose every vest-
ment and chalice and candlestick, and banner and
organ, and bells and pictures, and image and altar and
shrine, they looked upon as their own and part of their
birthright.' (Studies by a Recluse in Cloister, Town,
and Country.}
The artist sculptor, no longer tied to the copying
over and over again according to a formula supplied
to him, looked for the motives of his ornamentation
in the human, animal, and vegetable life around
him. The vine was not the only symbol, and if
symbolism were required it was open to any one to
apply it from all the flora of nature, and so, as we
shall see, in capital and corbel, in roof and screen, in
sculptured stone, or carved wood, he would use the
clinging ivy, leafwork and fruit of oak, the trailing
eglantine, the fern and all the common plants and fruits
familiar to his locality. Happily for his art, the
traditions derived originally from the cloister taught
him to avoid mere imitation. The guilds, however
independent in the working of their regulations, were
still under the control of the Church.
A guild or corporation was a kind of large family
comprising all those who aspired to the craft it practised.
It had its various grades of apprentice, craftsman, and
master, the last an office of honour often accorded to
some great lord. It possessed, usually, its own chantry
chapel in the cathedral church, its hall, its processional
banners, benevolent fund, collars, jewels and other
insignia, and enjoyed numerous civic privileges. To
this day, as is well known, the shadow remains in our
city companies and in various guilds in other coun-
tries. The purpose of their existence was a practical
one, always, however, in submission to or under the
WOOD SCULPTURE
influences of religion. A notable circumstance is that
in every country these associations were placed under
the patronage of St. Luke. The origin of the invo-
cation is uncertain. It is known, of course, that in
hagiology St. Luke is considered to have been an
accomplished painter and sculptor. Some, however,
hold that, by a fortuitous circumstance not unparalleled
in the rise of legendary stories, the founder of the
system was a Florentine painter of holy life, and of the
same name, in the twelfth century. The image makers
— tailleurs dy images, imagiers, beeldersnyders or
beeldemakers, amongst other appellations in France
and in the Netherlands — were the sculptors of
the Middle Ages with no distinctions as to material,
whether stone, or wood, or ivory. The system of
their guilds probably differed but little in the various
countries, and at the beginning, at least, they worked
freely and independently. Paris was the first — about
the end of the fourteenth century — to combine in one
corporation the guilds of the imagers with those of the
painters and illuminators, and to bring them under a
stringent code of statutes. The huchers or huchiers
(Flem. screenwerkers) were a lower class of workmen,
makers of chests and furniture of all sorts, and the
architectural part of choir-work as distinguished from
the imagery. All, whether carvers of images or other
decorative work, coffer-makers , huchers or table or
bench makers, were under the master carpenters, and
the strictest regulations were enforced regarding the
quality of wood to be used. In Flanders the profession
of wood sculpture was one of the most ancient in the
guild of Saint Luke, and by the end of the fifteenth
century formed a distinct corporation, undertaking such
important works as were everywhere in evidence ; choir
and stall work as at Rouen or Amiens, or the ^reat
retables for which the wood-carvers of the Netherlands
were everywhere famous. The principle upon which
42
THE MASTER WORKMAN
the guilds were founded was that of a community under
the direction of a master mason or a master carpenter
as the case might be, the whole subordinated to the
general plan which, while prescribing the position and
dimensions of, for example, a capital or a frieze or the
arrangement of stall work, left the artist sculptor free
scope, in his own particular department, for individual
expression. Not otherwise can we understand the
creation of the elaborate choir work of Amiens, or of
Ulm and so many others. The idea must be grasped
generally, as it would be impossible to consider it here
in its details. The most important thing to remember
is the subordination to the general conception of the
edifice both in form and colour, and that every portion,
from painted window to thefoujes of the stalls, played its
part in the production of the harmony. Subject to this
there was a general absence of specialization and par-
ticular distinction among the arts. Most men were
practised in several. The system implied local govern-
ment, popular interest and readiness to help in any
capacity. As Ruskin says in his Seven Lamps of
Architecture, the master workman must have been the
person who carved the bas-reliefs in the porches, and
to him all others must have been subordinate. The
number of sculptors was so great that it would no
more have been thought necessary to state regarding
the builder that he could carve a statue than that he
could measure an angle or strike a curve. At a sale
of autographs at Sotheby's in the present year was one
of Ruskin, to a friend, in which he declares that
'neither Gilbert Scott nor anybody else can build
Gothic or Italian/ and this, because architects are not
now also sculptors. 'All real work in these styles/
he continues, ' depends primarily on mastery of figure
sculpture/ However arbitrarily conveyed, the dictum
is one which cannot be too strongly insisted upon.
The French sculptor Rodin, in a conversation reported
43
WOOD SCULPTURE
by Frederic Lawton in his Life and Work of the artist,
expressed the same idea. He said : ' the aim of the
Gothic artist was to fashion something that should
have its full meaning and produce its full effect only
in the place where it was to stand. They carved for
the architecture, not for themselves/ We are aware
what importance is to-day attached to the position of
the conductor of an orchestra, and how greatly it differs
from the time-beater of fifty years ago, how he holds
supreme control of the whole, and how, as it were,
through this control, he plays every instrument which
composes it. This, it would seem, was the office of
the mediaeval master builder.
The earliest regulations concerning carvings in
wood are very precise. The wood was submitted to
the most rigid selection by officials appointed for the
purpose, in order that the quality, seasoning, and
freedom from knots and shakes should be guaranteed.
There are no end of regulations concerning careful and
correct morticing and so on. Nothing in a figure
was to be joined, except in the case of a crucifix, for
which three pieces were allowed. Finally the marks
of the corporation and of the sculptor were impressed.
When the fourteenth century opened, while Gothic
art was still in its full splendour, the new tendencies
towards a return to nature as distinguished from
the conventions imposed by scholastic philosophy
may be said to have more than asserted themselves.
There was everywhere, in sculpture as in painting, a
desire to profit by the personal observation of nature,
and to deduce from this what we call realism. Under
the altered circumstances which have been briefly in-
dicated in ^ the preceding pages it is not surprising that
the condition of the artist sculptor and the artist painter
should have been immeasurably raised. The first was
no longer a mere craftsman, a chipper of stone or wood
working to order with ideas supplied to him— by rule
44
TWELFTH CENTURY IN FRANCE
of thumb, indeed, as the Greek carver of icons works
to this day. Instead, he found himself in a position
of relative independence. He became, in fact, a per-
sonage of considerable importance in the social scale.
Great princes and nobles sought him out and attached
him to their courts, not merely as their servant, but as
a confidential friend. So it is that at the courts of the
dukes of Burgundy, at the end of the fourteenth and
beginning of the fifteenth century, we find Claus Sluter
and his companions part of the princely households :
Sluter himself valet de chambre to Philip the Bold, in
those days equivalent to a title of nobility.
We have little information concerning the condition
of wood sculpture in France in the twelfth century.
Examples, as elsewhere, are wanting. It is probable
that, in common with monumental sculpture in stone,
it preserved the ancient traditions, and was exercised
principally in the southern provinces, and in such
centres as Toulouse. To this region we are indebted,
no doubt, for numbers of the archaic crucifix and
Madonna figures, which will be noted later in their
place* In Poitou, la Saintonge, Normandy, the lie de
France, Picardy, or Auvergne, the ornament was still
confined for the most part to the friezes and capitals of
pillars derived from Byzantine models- But in Bur-
gundy— at Vezelay or Autun for example — the Cluniac
order had reached an immense development and influ-
ence. Where the principal Cluniac monasteries were
situated, statuary, though still modelled upon the con-
ventional hieratism, had made considerable progress.
It is necessary to say modelled on, for it was more
adaptation with entirely French differences of features
and drapery than unintelligent copying. In the He
de France and Normandy statuary was non-existent,
Poitou and Toulouse were in complete decadence.
There was, of course, the mid-twelfth western doorway
of Chartres with its statuary. But in most regions the
45
WOOD SCULPTURE
type was rigid, individuality of the personages repre-
sented wholly lacking. The thirteenth century dawned,
and the great change was effected by the organization
of the laity outside the enclosures where art had so
long been in the hands of dreamers poring over their
books. French furniture, earlier than the thirteenth
century, is confined to the very few existing, prac-
tically unornamented, pieces of the type of the Obazine
armoire. But this, with its extreme simplicity, is a
model of solid elegance, and the long iron hinges are,
as decoration, charming and sufficient in themselves.
What images we have in wood of the first years of the
fourteenth century certainly begin to show a more
realistic character. Instead of the conventional,
smiling, simpering type, they appear to be more
approaching real life, at any rate to have been sug-
gested by a living model. The ivory * bend ' continues,
but this is merely fashion. As the century progresses
the tendency to exuberance and overloading in response
to the demand for display, both ecclesiastical and civil,
is marked. However this may be, no department of
artistic industry in France showed more splendid
results than are found in the examples of wood
sculpture generally which still adorn so many of the
cathedrals throughout the country. In the earlier
days we find some difficulty in distinguishing a type
or method which we can call national, nor was the
art of wood sculpture so diligently practised as by the
Fleming, or in Germany where the material was more
abundant. The Flemish wood-carvers seem to have
long preserved the lead throughout the fourteenth cen-
tury, and in the fifteenth one is always tempted to
ascribe to Flanders the most striking examples of figure
work. The general character was the same, and the
overlapping of frontiers, added to the practice of bands
of workmen being engaged far from their own homes
— not to mention the ubiquitous Fleming — renders the
46
TOURAINE
task of distinction still more difficult. It is certain,
however, that towards the middle of the fifteenth
century there was one district where sculpture of all
kinds, including wood-carving, was practised with
remarkable activity. This was in Touraine, and
examples from that school are the more interesting on
account of its connexion with the courts of the dukes
of Burgundy, and because from it we may gather some
precise idea of the quality of French art in wood of
that period. Some then, of which the French origin is
certain, may be selected. The first belong to the region
of Tours, about the middle of the fifteenth century,
and apart from their individual charm their interest is
heightened from the fact that Michel Colombe and his
compatriot, Jean Fouquet, established their workshops
in that district. These are three panels of oak acquired
by the Louvre about fifteen years ago : part of a set,
for a few others are known in private collections. On
each, in low relief, is an angel holding a shield on
which is represented one of the instruments of the
Passion : the nails, the winding-sheet, the purse of
Judas, and the rods. All are characterized by a similar
type of face and figure, by the outstretched wings, the
same model of smiling £ace and arrangement of the
hair, the long straight folds of the alb-Tike garments,
and a peculiarly marked bending of the knees. At one
time, in the church of Ronzi&res, in Touraine, they were
formerly coloured, and traces of this remain under the
later and badly added daubing. Nothing could be
more French, nothing more simply elegant and natural
Instead of the arbitrary exaggeration of the angular
folds which distinguish the Flemish draperies of the
period, the lines of the tunics fall gracefully and
naturally ; the details of the wings and of the hair are
indicated with precision, yet without undue prominence,
and one cannot help remarking with what art the
sculptor has expressed the value of an accessory such
47
WOOD SCULPTURE
as the scourge. And yet one asks oneself are these the
work of an established workshop, almost a commercial
product, or rather, as one feels, due to some simple
inhabitant of the district, naturally endowed, and so
more touching" in their spontaneous feeling ? In the
Victoria and Albert Museum are some larger panels of
walnut, with angels bearing shields, of the Savoyard
school of the early sixteenth century, which are worth
comparing with those just described (Plate n.). The
general type was a favourite one everywhere. In Eng1-
land, on bench ends and other places many will be
found.
Whatever may have been the relations of French art
with other nationalities in the more northern provinces,
here, in Touraine, it is of the country undiluted. At the
same time at this period changes were imminent. The
Italian invasion was rapidly approaching. In the con-
cluding years of the century the court of Charles vni.
was making its progress through the province, and
bringing in its train Italian masters for the decoration
of the royal castles of Amboise, of Blois, or of Cham-
bord. It is small wonder, therefore, if the simple native
art-workers were tempted to learn from and assimilate
the new style. They were .no less clever than their
teachers, and here, and through the assimilation , arose
the French Renaissance. For, in accordance with the
genius of the national character, they took the idea only
and worked it out for themselves in their own way.
In the same connexion of ideas a brief reference
may be made to some examples of French Burgundian
statuary work in wood and stone of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries in the region of Autun. An important
collection of these figures is to be found in the Mus<5e
Rollin at Autun. These have by no means the high
value and artistic merit of the Tourangelle examples,
local and personal thought some of them may be.
Several, indeed, such as the St. Andrew, in wood,
48
I ' V N K I ,S NV 1 I' I
\N«il-,I,S, .SOUTH !«.!< N I-'RKNt H (SAVOYARD}
MX*Il'J<;Xl'n t'KN'I t'US*
POLITICAL INFLUENCES
make us pause before we qan persuade ourselves that
they belong to the region, and are not importations
from very much farther north. But there are others —
for the most part coloured — which are of interest as
examples of local characteristics and of various influ-
ences steadily imposing themselves in these districts at
a period of transition, while yet Gothic methods and
feeling held the field. A remarkable portrait statuette of
a man in the hunting costume of the time of Louis
xiii. is important from its absolute naturalism, for
although it is said to represent St. Hubert, or even
St. George, there appears to be not the smallest trace
of any saintly character or attribute. The reader must
be referred to the article and illustrations in the Gazette
des Beaux Arts for November 1909.
The end of the fourteenth century might present some
difficulties if we should attempt to draw deductions
from the political conditions of France, especially in the
northern provinces. Under our own King Edward in.
the English were still, roughly speaking, in possession of
Picardy, and of most of the south-western part of the
country from north of Poitiers to Spain, and bounded on
the east by Auvergne, Touraine, and Languedoc. The
southern provinces were lost at his death, but England
still retained Aquitaine and Guienne. In the beginning
of the fifteenth century Paris itself becomes an English
town. But the strongest influence of all, particularly
affecting our subject, was caused by the political cir-
cumstances which joined together the French and
Flemish possessions of the dukes of Burgundy. Nor
is it, perhaps, altogether a factor to be neglected that it
was these dukes, especially the first of them, Philip the
Bold, who— vassals though they were supposed to
be of the kings of France— aided the English in the
conquest of the country. They were our allies at
Crecy and at Poitiers. But it was the marriage of
Philip with Marguerite de Valois, heiress of Flanders,
WOOD SCULPTURE
that brought about the decisive influence on the arts.
The dukes of Burgundy, in their unrestrained passion
for display and magnificence, were able to gratify it
through the vast wealth which the possession of the
richest industrial towns of Flanders afforded them.
The two courts combined formed a centre of splen-
dour and extravagance. The sovereigns surrounded
themselves with luxuries, and gathered together an
army of workers, painters, sculptors, goldsmiths, and
retainers of all kinds who flocked to them, from the
French provinces still held by England, to assist in the
adornment of their numberless palaces and castles.
Two streams of art met at Dijon, the French capital of
the duchy* It was a time when Flanders had become
the principal centre of art in Europe, when Van Eyck,
Rogier Van der Weyden, and their schools were the
teachers and directors, not only in painting proper but,
to a very great extent, in all the arts, and in an especial
manner in that of wood-carving. From Brussels,
Antwerp, Tournay, Bruges, Ypres, Ghent, or Licige,
craftsmen came in swarms, or followed the court as
they moved between the two great capitals.
It was at Dijon that Philip built the Chartreuse of
Champmol, and for its church were made in 1391 two
great retables, notable landmarks in the history of wood
sculpture. These were the work of the Flemish artists
Jacques de Baerze and Melchior Broederlam. There,
too, are the magnificent sedilia for priest, deacon, and
subdeacon, made by Hennequin of Lidge. These arc
but a few examples of the wood-carvers' skill at the
Chartreuse, where the art itself had established a school
of no inferior importance amongst the other schools of
sculpture. Of the sculptors, if precise information is
lacking- concerning* the parts played by each in divers
-works, we know the names at least of the leaders — Jeande
Marvilleand his nephew and successor, Nicolas or Claus
Sluter, the architect of the famous tomb of the founder,
$4 1^ irf^'F'1 ®m $ •
mMiL:, ^£t^klL ft* i
BURGUNDIAN
and of the hardly less famous ' Puits de Moi'se.' Each
of the retables consists of three panels of figures in full
relief, with foliage and flower work in dead gold on
backgrounds of colour. The central subjects are from
the gospel narrative — the decollation of St. John the
Baptist, the Visit of the Magi, the Crucifixion and
Entombment — legends of SS. Antony, Catherine, and
Barbara, and others drawn from the Golden Legend.
Over all is the most remarkable architectural design of
sculptured arcades of any that we possess in wood, so
refined and delicate is it in detail and in general effect.
The whole, except the flesh tints and some of the
draperies, is fully gilded. The question of the extent
of the influence of the Fleming on French art is a
complicated one. These great retables, amongst other
sculpture at Dijon, we know are due to Flemish artists,
and the masters, such as Sluter, in the service of the
duke, seem to have set their faces against employing
any but their countrymen. Yet the art, whatever its
origin, was fostered in France, and if the stranger came
in it is probable that, as elsewhere, he assimilated much
of the spirit and preferences which he already found in
the country* Nor was France, at the time, unused to
dramatic treatment of sacred scenes in the manner of
the retables. The churches of Dijon, of Autun, or of
Vezelay, of Albi, of Toulouse, and indeed throughout
the east and south of France, can testify to this. But
we are inclined to marvel all the more at such excep-
tionally fine and original work as that of Sluter and
his school when we remember that when these master-
pieces were achieved Donatello was yet to be born, and
Michael Angelo to be unheard of for more than a cen-
tury later. This Flemish art is, therefore, an important
link in the chain of the arts between the traditional
methods of Niccola of Pisa and the evolution accom-
plished by the great names of the Renaissance on the
other side of the Alps*
WOOD SCULPTURE
Wood-carving as applied to the decoration of
domestic furniture of a luxurious kind at the end
of the fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth century
differed hardly at all from that which characterized
the choir and other woodwork for the service of
the church. Immense thronelike seats were covered
with sculptured panels, carved with window tracery,
and with subjects in various degrees of relief, taken
from Scripture or from lives of the saints. From
the summits of their monumentally high backs pro-
jected broad canopies supported by traceried vaultings,
with saintly images and other figures in full relief, in
every way comparable with the choir and screen work
of religious edifices. In addition to the panels with
religious subjects we find others with the linen pattern
in many varieties, or with intricate arrangements of
floral leaf-work, pendentives, arcades, corbels, pinnacles,
colonnettes, figures of angels and cherubs, and a
general decoration borrowed from architectural sys-
tems and enriched with every imaginable caprice.
Nothing but innumerable illustrations could give an
idea of the infinite variety. Bedsteads of the fifteenth
century are of extreme rarity either in France, the
Netherlands, or in England, But we can gather from
miniatures, or from the carvings of such stall-work as
at Amiens, that these, together with the great armoires,
the dressers and credence tables, were of a like archi-
tectural character and profusion of ornament. Bed-
steads of this period are more common in Germany.
In general the form was either that which we now call
halt-tester, the head, foot, and canopy elaborately
carved, or a kind of boxed~in enclosure or alcove. A
typical example is illustrated by Mr. Baillie Grphman
in the description of his castle at Matzen in the
Austrian Tyrol (see ' The Land in the Mountains ')„
Throughout the Gothic period in France it would
be useless to attempt to distinguish styles in the
52
FLANDERS
various provinces. Practically there was but one, and
to ascribe this or that example to a particular district
is very often purely hypothetical. Nor, without devot-
ing more space to one country than would be justifiable,
is it possible in a book of this kind even to allude to
numbers of examples of monumental wood sculpture
which possess from so many points of view an interest
apart from the beauty which distinguishes them. This
is the case, for example, with such illustrations of pure
Gothic, and the mixture of Gothic and the classic of
the Renaissance, as we find, together with a perfection of
execution, in the flamboyant central doors of Rouen, or
the great doors of the cathedral of Aix. Of the latter
the attention of the reader may be called to the excellent
reproduction in the gallery of casts in the museum at
Kensington.
The characteristics of Flemish art of the periods
with which we are most particularly concerned are not
easy to define. Strong in its influence upon others, it
is itself the result of numerous foreign impressions.
From its geographical and political position the
country has been, turn and turn about, now half
French or Spanish, now under the strong influence
of her German neighbour: affected by the dynastic
alliances with England under Charles the Bold of
Burgundy, or, again, with those of Austria and Spain.
In general, the art of a people reflects the character and
inclinations of the race. The Fleming, so sincerely
attached to his home, was essentially a traveller in
search of business, with the natural consequence that
the artist who travelled, whether to sell his wares or
to learn the methods of other countries, was the means
of a reciprocal interchange of ideas, and brought back
with him those which he assimilated. It is necessary
also to classify the artistic output. This included the
purely commercial productions under the authority of
the guilds, and, on the other hand, those of the artist
53
WOOD SCULPTURE
freely working in a foreign country or for a foreign
master. In every land we find him at work. To
France, and to Paris especially, the master imagers of
the schools of Brabant came in great numbers, many,
no doubt, to stay. There is voluminous documentary-
evidence to show that they were employed in the orna-
mentation of churches throughout the whole country.
It must suffice simply to mention Rouen, and the stalls
and the great crucifix carved by Mosselmen for the
cathedral. The exportation of retables to France was
constant during two centuries, and many are still in
evidence. In Sweden, also, some of the finest examples
of the fifteenth century exist to this day. In Italy,
Flemish artists and their retables were received with
enthusiasm even in the days of the greatest of the
quattrocento sculptors. In the succeeding century the
names of numbers settled in the country could be
gathered. The artistic relations with Spain will be
considered later on. Finally, as regards our own
country, the relative positions naturally encouraged
commercial relations and brought about those of art.
We imported largely, no doubt, altarpieces and screen-
work. It is hardly necessary to quote the case of
Westminster. In old records, references to the em-
ployment of Flemish workmen are frequent, and of
payments such as to Hawkin de Li£ge, and the 200
marks 'which the Lord the King commanded to be
paid to him for making the tomb of Philippa, Queen
of England/ In 1441 there is mention of a dispute
between Wm. Cerebiss, a Scotch merchant, and a
monk of Melrose Abbey, acting on behalf of Corneille
d'Aeltre, a master carpenter of Bruges, who was to
supply certain stalls for the abbey after the fashion of
the stalls of the church of Dunis in Flanders, It is
necessary to bear in mind the geographical position of
the Netherlands, and we must not forget the overlap-
ping of frontiers — of Holland, France, and Germany —
54
FLANDERS
so that it is not always easy to distinguish between
Dutch and Walloon, French and German. Still, on
the one hand, the Walloon is French in language and
fenius, refined and inclined to the ideal ; on the other
e is German, more simple, more patient, more practi-
cal, rough in manner, and with a preference for matter
of fact, that is to say, towards realism. On this side,
too, he is, at times, decidedly coarse. There are
among the misericords of the fifteenth century certain
examples which the esprit gaulois, even of that free
age, would disavow. It is useful to remember that the
Walloon provinces of the French tongue were in the
thirteenth century those of Artois and Hainault — in-
cluding Valenciennes— Cambrai, Arras, Lidge, Namur,
Brabant, Lille, Tournai, and Lorraine.
It is not proposed to discuss here at any length a very
difficult and perhaps thorny subject. This is the tendency
to realism, and its rise and evolution, which is so charac-
teristic of the art of the Netherlands. It will be found
strongly marked in the retables and single figures with
which we shall principally deal, and without seeking to
decide on the origin or the reciprocal influences which
may have accompanied its growth, it may at once be
taken that the close of the fourteenth century shows
it at its height. Till quite the end of the twelfth century,
Flemish sculpture had continued to adhere closely to
the old traditions, and remained sunk in a dull subser-
vience to, and unintelligent copying of, conventional
types. In the thirteenth, Flanders followed almost as
servilely the culture of the French provinces, and so
far adopted the language and ideas that the distinction
between the sculptures of the two countries is, as in
the case also of ivories, sometimes difficult to establish.
In that century, in France, the ideal in sculpture
was at the height of its refined grace and charm, and
still in complete subjection to the mystical element
and the most rigid rules of ecclesiastical discipline.
55
WOOD SCULPTURE
French fashions and ideas of all kinds invaded
the Low Countries with resistless force, and the
triumph in sculpture was complete. Of realism,
such as the next century developed, and the fifteenth
carried to its utmost limits, there is no trace. It is not
to be inferred, however, that the Flemish sculptor was
content to copy from French models, but that the
sentiment once introduced and understood was eagerly
assimilated and followed, sometimes with national
differences, but as often without Arrived then at its
height at the period when the apparition of the brothers
Van Eyck, and of their school, startled the world of
art, it is hardly surprising that the part played by
Flanders in the introduction of the new feeling should
be somewhat exaggerated, even to the point of giving
to Flemish artists the credit of an absolutely new
invention. We must by no means conclude that the
process of evolution was anything more than slow and
gradual, or more hurried in Flanders than in France.
The word once given to go, it was as if those who
practised the arts had to submit to a long apprentice-
ship in an entirely new system, and to abandon a great
deal that they had learned under an antiquated and
now discredited system- The emancipation from the
old fetters was a long and tedious process. But liberty
was in the air, the cause was a popular one. People
learned by themselves what they had hitherto accepted
in a mechanical manner. They began to understand
how to make use of nature as a model, and how to
give life and movement to their figures, a dramatic
element to the composition, Mighty again was the
revolution involved in the understanding and true use
of perspective. It is not with France only that com-
parisons are to be made in considering the beginnings
of realism in the early days of the Renaissance, In
the fourteenth century Italy, equally with Flanders,
disputed for the lead in the development of the arts.
56
FLANDERS
Equally to them both is due the signal for a movement
which went direct to nature for inspiration. The chief
propagator in Germany, Spain, England, and Northern
Europe, was the untiring Fleming.
Nowhere is there such a complication of detail,
such elaboration of ornament, such a masterly use of
polychromatic decoration, such a change in style from
the sobriety which in the midst of its richness charac-
terized the altarpieces of Dijon, as in the great retables
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Striking in
their perspective arrangement, they are more pictorial
than pure sculpture. A well-known French critic,
M. Bonnafife, has said of this Flemish figure work that
the proportions are somewhat squat, that they lack the
German realism, French elegance, and Italian great
manner (grande allure). The assertion is too sweep-
ing : numerous instances would show almost the exact
contrary, although as a general impression, with the
exception of the comparison with Germany, it has
reason enough in it. The figures are shorter and
blunter than in similar French work, the modelling
harder, and the draperies treated with an exaggeration
of sharp angular folds which is especially distinctive of
the realistic art of the late fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. Carried into Germany, the system, even
with the best Franconian masters, became a perfect
craze, in which all reason seems to have been thrown
to the winds. There will be ample occasion presently
to note examples. As the fifteenth century advances
the taste for realism is still more marked in the details
of flesh modelling and in the expressions of human
passions almost violently displayed. The sobriety of
the old conventional form of garments, founded on
classical traditions, is discarded. Virgins and martyrs,
the Saint Catherines, Magdalens, and Margarets are
presented to us in the holiest of scenes as ladies of
fashion in the richest costumes: patriarchs and
57
WOOD SCULPTURE
apostles are in the dress of the period. In the Nether-
lands, perhaps more than anywhere else, it was the age
of wood-carving, the churches filled from floor to roof
with sculptured altarpieces, screens, and choir fittings,
episcopal thrones, tabernacles, and font covers, carry-
ing high into the air their elaborately-carved pinnacles.
An equal demand on the wood sculptor's art came
also from the palaces of the wealthy, and, above all, so
far as the happily preserved existing monuments can
testify, from the H6tels de Ville and other corporation
buildings of the great cities. Some names of the
designers and sculptors of these great works we know.
At Bruges, Jean de Valenciennes did most of the sculp-
ture of the Town Hall, and carved in 1386 the richly-
vaulted ceiling of the great Salle des Echemns. One
example — the most widely-known perhaps — of the
monumental decoration so frequently found in the
municipal buildings, must suffice for all. It is the
great chimney-piece of the Palais de Justice at Bruges.
An excellent reproduction has for many years been
included in the collection of casts in the Victoria and
Albert Museum* It brings us, of course, to the very
end of the period to which it has been necessary to
restrict this book : indeed, in this regard, it somewhat
oversteps our limits. Finished in 1532 by Gtiyot de
Beaugrant and Lancelot Blondeel, it is only with the
statues, busts, and other ornament in carved oak, by
Herman Glosencamp, that we are particularly con-
cerned, but it would be impossible to dissociate from
them the rest of the work. A most admirable feature
is the harmonious mixture of the black marble statues
bordered with alabaster and the great oak figures*
Spanish taste is apparent throughout, especially in the
proportions of the figures, though the union of the two
countries was not till some twenty years later Still
we know that de Beaugrant was in relations with
Spain, and that he died there in 1551. The character
58
FLANDERS
of ornament applied to luxurious furniture differed not
at all in Gothic times from that already noticed in
French work. Magnificent examples are to be found
in museums, ranging throughout the three centuries
which we are now considering in their general aspect.
It is fortunate that we are still able to examine so
many important specimens, and in this way to supple-
ment the deficiency of examples of ecclesiastical work
resulting from iconoclastic devastations. The history
of these incidents, indeed, singularly resembles our
own. The internal troubles of religious wars from
about 1566 to 1584 commenced the disasters. It is
marvellous that anything in the churches, then, as
it were, the museums of every country, survived the
outrageous treatment to which they were subjected.
M. Dehaisnes in his Art Chretien en Flandre tells us,
quoting from contemporary documents, how the sec-
taries and their adherents 'jettent parterre et brisent
touttes les images, autels, 6pitaphes, organes, sepul-
tures, ornements, calices, sacrements et toute chose
servant au service de Dieu.1 (Letter of Margaret of
Parma to Philippe n.) Churches were whitewashed to
adapt them to Calvinistic methods, amongst them Notre
Dame of Antwerp, then one of the richest temples of
Christendom. But worse almost was to come later, as
in our own bad days of the seventeenth and of the first
half of the nineteenth century, so close to our own
time. On the establishment of the government of
Albert and Isabella, the restoration of Catholic worship
brought with it an immense impulse to revive its
ancient splendour. It is the time of St. Charles
Borromeo. He sends Jesuits to direct the new style
of decoration adopted, and in accordance with the
Roman ecclesiastical style, which took kindly to the
rococo and theatrical in churches, the Jesuit system
in sculpture triumphs. Whatever may have been the
value to art in general, great as it was, of Italy's part
59
WOOD SCULPTURE
in the Renaissance, we can only deplore the influence of
St. Charles Borromeo on church ornament : an influ-
ence which pursues us to this day, in Jesuit taste in
the decoration of altars and in statuary. The cult of
the tawdry is almost elevated into a dogma. Instead
of the instructive retable in carved wood or stone, of
which Flemish art provided so many noble examples,
this was replaced by the colonnaded high altar with
interrupted pediment. Rubens is substituted for the
glorious Primitives, and everywhere, in sanctuary and
nave, on the altars, in pulpit, and in the newly intro-
duced confessional boxes, appears the debased classic.
Balusters instead of panels, twists and scrolls, vases
and pyramids, obtrusive glories amongst impossible
clouds, cherubs and angels of theatrical type, and
Madonnas in copes and monstrous crowns, take the
place of the pathetic figures of Gothic times. Every-
thing seems to shout at us and to glory in its vul-
garity.
60
CHAPTER IV
RETABLES IN FLANDERS AND GERMANY
THE genius of the masters of wood-carving is
nowhere more admirably displayed than in
the retables or altarpieces which, in Flemish
art especially, have now to be considered It is not
to be wondered at that they should have brought forth
the highest efforts and the most loving care, for, on the
one hand, they were destined to complete and decorate
the most holy part of a church, on the other, the sculptor
was called in to supply in many cases a fitting framework
for the masterpieces of a Van Eyck, a Memling, or a Van
der Weyden, Not always, of course, was the carved
work merely a framing for the painted pictures. Often,
indeed, the entire retable is of wood, a picture with its
perspective planes in some measure correctly disposed.
In size and variety of arrangement also there were many
differences. In the chapter on boxwoods we shall come
across some extraordinary tours de force of tiny altar-
pieces, if we may so term them, microscopically carved.
They are not, perhaps, strictly retables so much as objects
for private devotion. Still we must place them in the
same category. The altar and its surroundings in primi-
tive times was characterized by an extreme simplicity
and absence of ornament. It is sufficient to remember
that the bishop sat behind it, in the apse, to show that
not even a curtain intervened, much less so solid an
erection as a reredos. Even when the priest took his
place in front, and until quite late mediaeval times,
61
WOOD SCULPTURE
there was nothing on the altar but the chalice, the
book, and, while they were still used, the diptychs.
The enclosure of the choir with its arrangement of
stalls seems to have been approximately coeval with
the appearance of great fixed altarpieces. The earliest
examples which we possess of both date from the
thirteenth century. At the same time, it is to be
noticed that they appear to be already of a settled type
— a type which for the choir stalls has scarcely varied
down to the present day — so that for some time
previous something in the nature of an altarpiece may
have formed a groundwork for decoration. Metal work
was the forerunner. In Italy we have the Pala d'oro
of St. Mark's of the twelfth century, and goldsmith's
and enamel work was probably general elsewhere, to
give way to stone or wood, more or less according to
locality. In the fourteenth century we arrive at an age
when everything that ingenuity could suggest tended
to exaggerate novel ideas in architectural arrangements
and the accessories of church furniture. Men's ideas
were centred in the church. It was the mainspring
whence proceeded all their interests and even their
recreations. In the smallest village the adornment
of the church occupied every mind, and possessing a
higher appreciation of the beautiful and a more general
diffusion of good taste than nowadays, people were ever
on the look-out for a suggestion of novel ideas culmin-
ating at times in extravagances for the mere pleasure
of doing things in some startlingly original manner.
The earliest fixed construction corresponding with the
later triptychs or polyptychs is the retable carved in
soft limestone formerly in the church of the Carri&re
Saint-Denis at Paris : a picture in stone forming a
kind of screen at the back of and resting on the altar.
It was nowhere the custom to make the altar a fixture
against the east wall There was a space between, and
the early retable served to support and conceal a large
62
RETABLES
reliquary over the ambulatory. A tabernacle on the
altar itself has, at most, the authority of the last three
centuries. Two lights or even one sufficed, nor was it the
custom to place flower-vases, candlesticks, reliquaries,
or other ornaments upon the holy table. Even the book
and its cushion were brought and taken away by the
acolyte as they are, or should be, now. As, then,
innovations succeeded each other, the retable became
an adjunct upon which the utmost skill of architect and
sculptor was lavished. It attained the proportions of
a towering edifice, with pinnacles covered with every
description of architectural device, with niches and
statuary, pendentives, canopies, and tracery of all kinds,
soaring up to the roof of the building.
The German retables are distinguished by their fanci-
ful construction and the lengths to which the system was
carried, and in Spain the development was still greater.
Our present interest is with the smaller variety, of wood,
either decorative or pictorial work in themselves, or
forming in addition a framing for paintings. A Flemish
retable of this description consists usually of a triptych
formed by a central portion with a movable wing on
either side, hinged so as to fold in on the centre when
required. Sometimes the wings themselves are sub-
divided- Every portion is lavishly carved with scenes
and figures in relief. The central panels naturally
present the principal scene, often with innumerable
figures in full relief and in a landscape perspective,
crowned and surrounded by every description of archi-
tectural ornament. Thus we have, in astonishing abund-
ance, arabesques of foliage, fruit and flowers, statuettes,
pendentives, pilasters, groinings, corbels, culs-de-lampe,
crestings, canopies, niches, lace work ; in short, speaking
of the framework only, every conceivable detail and
architectural device on a small scale which monumental
sculpture in stone presented on a larger one.
There are characteristic differences between the
63
WOOD SCULPTURE
Flemish and German systems. That is to say, taking
them as a whole, for the geographical positions of
the two countries and their artistic relations naturally
prepare us to find similarities of general style. In
the one, so far as it is distinctly German, we have,
for example, the upper part of the work ornamented
with a range of floral crestings ; the Flemish is plain.
Canopies without supporting columns are more usual
with the latter, and we do not find here such common-
place features as the veil of open-worked thorny twigs
and branches, the too realistic vegetation, and such
fantastic caprices as the tops of the pinnacles curled
round like the volute of a crosier. There is, in the
German work, too much which would be more appro-
priate in wrought-iron. These features, however, need
not be insisted upon, because our limitations confine us
more particularly to the figure sculpture, and general
observations without numerous illustrations would be
liable to be misunderstood. As a rule, the Flemish
retables of the fifteenth century are evidences of the
perfection of skill attained by the wood-carver in the
declining years of Gothic feeling, and of conscientious
work, with as much sobriety as the prevailing taste for
exuberance of detail permitted. When, however, we
are inclined to criticize them, as we find them now,
under glass in a museum, or in a church with altered
surroundings, we must not forget the positions which
they were created to occupy. This was not under the
garish light of a modern gallery, but in the soft
obscurity, perhaps, of a guild or convent chapel,
discreetly lighted by windows of painted glass pro-
portioned to its size, or by the dim oil lamps and
tapers of its altar and shrines. So many retables
contain paintings of the great masters, above all by
the French and Flemish primitives of the same date
as the sculptures, that it is reasonable to suppose that
the painter had more than a little to say with regard to
64
THE FLEMISH PRIMITIVES
their general character, if indeed he was not responsible
in many cases for the design, and at times, for the
execution also. It is impossible to examine them,
and the work later on of the Franconian, Suabian,
and Bavarian schools, not to speak of those more
immediately connected with Flanders, without seeing
the indebtedness to, and absolute copying from, the
masters of painting, whether directly or through the
medium of the engravers. The Creglingen altarpiece
and innumerable others have their models in, for
example, the paintings on the wings of the well-known
altarpiece, the 'Adoration of the Lamb/ These things
are but the attempt at a translation into another
medium of the masterpieces of a Van Eyck, of a
Rogier de la Pasture, or of the Cologne artists, by
whom even Van Eyck was inspired. The influence
of these men invaded everything, and we find their
formulae everywhere the example to be followed. What
else are such details as the long wavy curls in separate
strands of Riemenschneider's Magdalen, of the Madonna
of Brussels workmanship in the Bossy collection of the
Louvre, or that charming fragment of a Virgin and
Child statuette in the Cluny Museum, also of the
Brussels schools, which with others we shall notice
in a succeeding chapter ? Or again, the drapery, broken
up into an infinite complication of angular folds, upon
which ^the German wood-carvers brought to bear their
own developments in treatment ? The question of the
participation of Roger Van ^der Weyden, and of other
great painters as sculptors, is not one that can be
discussed here. It is still unsettled. M. Maeterlinck,
in the Gazette des Beaux Arts for 1901, has devoted
a long study to it, and seems to bring at least prima
facie evidence that Roger, before his apprenticeship as a
painter, had worked the chisel of the imager. Nothing
is more likely and more in accordance with the spirit of
the times. Yet we know little of his history and early
E 65
WOOD SCULPTURE
life beyond the fact that he was born at Tournai about
the year 1400. Tournai had long been celebrated for
important schools of sculpture, and had exported far and
wide its productions and artists— in earlier times, for
instance, its black fonts to England— and at the end of
the fourteenth century it held the foremost position m
the art which Brussels and Antwerp wrested from it in
the following century. From the little more of which
there appears to be some documentary evidence, we may
gather that Roger's master, Robert Campin, was a
sculptor as well as painter. M. Maeterlinck concludes
that it is certain that Van der Weyden often painted
statues and retables, and, if the great carved retable
of Ambierle, which has been attributed to him, is not by
his hand, there would appear to be evidence not only
from style, but documentary, that he is responsible
at least for the painting of the sculpture, and for that
of a number of other famous retabies. Amongst these,
for example, maybe placed that of the Comte de Nahuys,
and one which is perhaps the finest of all Flemish
examples, the retable of Claude de Villa in the museum
at Brussels. (See E. Jeannez, Le retable & Ambierle
en Roumais, in Gas. arcke'ol., 1886.) It is interesting
to note that Waagen, many years ago, was already
persuaded of the influence which the Tournaisian
schools exercised not only on sculpture but even on
the great Flemish painters. In the present state of
the question, it is remarkable that this far-seeing critic
should have expressed his opinion that 'in the same
way that the most famous painters of the Roman and
Tuscan schools studied the great gates of Ghibcrti
of the Baptistery at Florence, so also the brothers
Van Eyck and Roger van der Weyden of BrugCvS were
inspired by the sculptors of Tournai.1 (Messager des
Sciences et des Arts, vol. ii.)
In Gothic times the practice was universal of paint-
ing and gilding sculpture of all kinds in stone, wood,
66
GERMAN RETABLES
ivory, and even metal. There seems to have been an
absolute dislike for monochrome, which appeared to be
incomplete without the aid of the painter to give it the
finishing touches. Frequently, no doubt, painter and
sculptor were the same individual. As the subject will
be treated at greater length in a succeeding chapter, it
need only be said here, that although such a striking
work as the great Flemish altarpiece at South Kensing-
ton is now uncoloured, and perhaps may never have
been intended to be otherwise, yet other marvellously
fine pieces of the same character, such as the retable of
Oplinter in the museum at Brussels, were fully coloured
and gilded. There can be little doubt that the painter
and sculptor worked together. It was from her Flemish
neighbours that Germany received the first impulse
towards realism, and when we come to consider pre-
sently some of the most striking examples amongst
the mass of German altarpieces of the fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries, the evidence of their indebted-
ness to Flemish art will be manifest. . In the treatment
of the subjects, and especially in the mannerism of the
drapery, the inspiration is from the great masters of
painting rather than through the medium of the carved
retables. Generally speaking, and especially in the
work of the more southern provinces, the German
retables give an impression of an arrangement among
decorative surroundings of a number of detached
figures or statuettes : almost doll-like, and in the worst
cases suggesting a puppet show. In the case of the
Flemish, and in the north German work, influenced
by the proximity of her neighbour, we have a more
pictorial, more lifelike representation of the scenes and
characters; the perspective is studied, the picture is
complete, instead of being formed by isolated figures.
The Flemish treatment is more refined, more suggestive
of the active collaboration of the painter with the
sculptor. The German, even in such a typical example
67
WOOD SCULPTURE
as Michael Pacher's altarpiece at St. Wolfgang, ex-
pends himself in a profusion of details, for ever adding
independent elements, and elaborating the ornament
till not an unoccupied space remains. Taken singly,
individual figures in the retable just mentioned are
admirable. Their grouping is almost fortuitous, as of
an assemblage which might have been collected from
various quarters. Yet Pacher was painter as well as
sculptor.
It must be admitted, also, that in the case of some
altarpieces, both Flemish as well as German, the toy-
stage-like effect is not wholly absent The composition
is divided into a number of compartments or separate
stages, peopled with little figures playing their parts in
some sacred drama. It is the representation, on a
small scale, of a mystery-play, and, indeed, from these
entertainments, so popular in the Middle Ages, the
idea may have proceeded. It is still continued in the
'Cribs' which it is customary to erect in so many
Catholic churches at Christmas time. Even in the
best examples of the retables the scenic illusion is
unavoidably present. The stage itself is sloped, so
that the figures which occupy the hinder planes may
be plainly visible, and there is frequently no difference
in their respective proportions wherever they may be
placed. There is an attempt at producing within a
constricted area the effect of greater space for the action
of the piece than is really the case. The groups and
details of the landscape stand out with startling
stereoscopic-like sharpness. The dramatic movement
is so striking, and the resemblance to a piece in action
so great, that one almost expects to find wings or side
scenes from which other characters in the drama will
presently emerge and play their parts upon the stage.
At the same time one must not forget the evident
relationship between these carvings and the storied
panels of the diptychs and triptychs, caskets and
68
CORPORATION MARKS
mirror-cases which, with less advanced ideas of per-
spective, delighted our mediaeval forefathers.
In about the second half of the fourteenth century
wood-carving was in a highly flourishing condition
in the province of Brabant, notably in the towns of
Brussels and Antwerp. Reference has already been
made to the organization of the guilds which were
universal at this period, and nowhere ruled with greater
strictness than in the Low Countries. At Brussels and
at Malines the wood-carvers seem to have belonged to
the guild of the Qnatuor Coronati, the stone sculptors
and other allied crafts forming a separate corporation
under the invocation of St. Claude and his four
fellow-martyrs. Before wood-carvings could be placed
on the market they had to satisfy a jury that they
were made of properly seasoned oak or walnut and of
the proper thickness. This examination satisfactorily
passed, a mark was impressed on the piece, which
seems, as a rule, to have borne some relation to the
arms of the town. According to M. Destr^e, who is
our principal authority, the mark of an open hand or*
a castle belonged to Antwerp, and especially to the
guild of huchiers charged with the marking of retables.
The mark for Brussels, for polychromed work, was
BRVESEL in Gothic characters enclosed in a rectangle.
Another corporation mark of Brussels is a mallet ; and
a shell, a fleur-de-lis, a compass and a kind of comb
with four teeth, would seem to be those of the sculptors.
But the whole subject of marks' is somewhat involved
and awaits further investigation, and careful examina-
tion of examples in various museums. Unfortunately
these indications are not, in general, easy to discover,
hidden away, as they often are, in the most out-of-the-
way corners. They are none the less important, for even
if we are unable in many cases to name the actual carver
of a ratable or other piece of sculpture, we may at least
be certain of the school to which he belonged. Every
WOOD SCULPTURE
craft was necessarily connected with a guild, and thus
the work issued from a particular source, and stamped
with its mark, was bound to have a family resemblance.
No doubt there was more personality in the details of
work in mediaeval times, in which more than one artist
had a share, than there is in our own day. Still, there
were probably commercial workshops, or, as we should
say, carving works. Except for their independence,
our modern system would not show much difference.
For example, a considerable quantity of screen and
other wood-carving, not excepting figure sculpture, for
the use of churches, has now for some years been
executed at Exeter, and there are at least two principal
firms. The productions of each house are not so diffi-
cult to distinguish. On the other hand we hear, for
instance, that this or that screen, or pulpit, or bench
end, or figure, has been carried out by Messrs, so-and-
so. But of the identity or celebrity of the actual designer
or carver we know nothing.
The mallet corporation mark of Brussels is found,
amongst other examples, on a St. Michael, and on a
Madonna group in the Louvre, and on Jan Borreman's
retable of St. George in the museum of industrial
arts at Brussels, We shall come across Borre-
man — or Borman — again in a succeeding chapter.
He and his son Pascal or Passier were among the
greatest and most prolific Brabant sculptors of the
end of the fifteenth century. The great retable with
the story of the Maccabees in the Brussels Museum is
by the elder man, and is marked with the mallet and
compass. His retables are especially free from the
faults which were just now indicated. The figures are
not suggestive of puppets, the planes are correctly
disposed, the perspective excellent: the architectural
features, in which the influence of the Renaissance is
apparent, are free from the fantastic exuberance of
ornament frequently found elsewhere. The compass
70
ALTARI'll'X'K. KLKMJSH. KIFTKKNTH
FLEMISH RETABLES
seems, for example on the retable of Claude de Villa, to
be a mark of the screemverkers generally, who worked in
concert with the image makers. To them was allotted
the part of carrying out the general architectural forms.
Then came the turn of the composer of the picture,
the sculptor of the figures, and the painter and gilder.
An interesting document exists among the archives of
Louvain, in which Jan Borreman agrees to execute
by his own hand all the figures of a certain piece of
sculpture to be made by the screenwerker Petercels.
Our national museum at Kensington acquired so long
ago as 1855 an extremely fine specimen of an altarpiece
of the latter part of the fifteenth century. It is of con-
siderable dimensions, uncoloured — in its present condi-
tion at least — and, of course, of oak. The illustration
here given will obviate the necessity of more than a brief
description (Plate iv.). The general formation, with a
central panel and two wings is much the same as in many
others of the style and period, but plainer and not so
rich in ornament. The figures of the apostles, now
placed upon it, may or may not have been originally
connected with it. The principal subject represents
the death of the Virgin : on the wings are the Nativity
and the Visit of the Magi. We may remark that the
character of the drapery is excessively tourmentd in the
multiplicity and the arrangement of the folds. The
piece is said to have come from the cathedral of St.
Bavon at Ghent. It would be interesting if we could
verify this origin. The fine retable, formerly in the
church at Anderghem, and now in the Brussels Museum,
is a good example of the coloured and profusely gilded
Flemish flamboyant style of mid-fifteenth century.
Within a moderate compass the groups of figures form
a living composition, each in its way superior to
more realistic work, as, for example, in the choir at
Ulm. Naturally, Belgium and the museums of the
chief city of the modern state are rich in specimens.
WOOD SCULPTURE
In the Mused du Cinquantenaire are some superb
examples, which alone are sufficient to illustrate the
subject at its best. These are the retables of Haeken-
dover, of the Cte. de Nahuys, and above all that known
as the retable of Claude de Villa. The first-named is
an instructive example of the preservation of types, for
though, without doubt, work of the end of the fifteenth
century — perhaps by Maftre Devis or Jan van Connix-
loo — the costumes and architectural style are of a
century earlier, carrying us back to the formulae of
Jacques de Baerze at Dijon. The retable of Claude de
Villa (Plate v.) is a triptych, with each compartment
crowned by an architectural decoration of ogival arches,
the points of which at one time may have carried
statuettes of which the culs-de-lampe now only remain.
The rest of the tabernacle work is a mass of delicate
tracery, lacelike in complication, yet of extreme light-
ness. In the centre is the principal subject, the
Crucifixion. Allowing for some differences, and for
more or less detail, this is the type of the pictorial
compositions which are general in this class of
altarpiece, and may be thus described : In a land-
scape a mountain of figures — men, women, soldiers
on horse and on foot, the crowd of sightseers,
officials and legendary figures that we associate always
with the sacred scene — leads up to the extremely tall
and narrow-limbed cross. On either side of this, on
similar crosses, are bound the thieves, contorted in
agony. With the exception of the most holy personages,
all the figures are in the costume of the period, that is,
of the last quarter of the fifteenth century, the date of
the work itself being about 1460 to 1470, The patrician
ladies of the crowd, and even some of those whose
names the scriptural narrative and legends attach to
the sacred event, are in the richest robes of brocade and
tissue of the latest and most extravagant fashion :
d&olletdes and decked with chains and jewels* Amongst
72
KKTAHLK OK CLAUDK OK VILLA. FLKMISH, FIFTKKNTH CRNTURY
HKLISSKl.S MVSKUM
I'ACK 78
RETABLE OF CLAUDE DE VILLA
them are the noble donor and his wife. They kneel
each at a draped prie-dieu, on which are their books of
devotion, he in full plate-armour, with by his side his
helmet with the mantling, surmounted by the family
crest — a horse's head — on the usual fillet: she in a
simple dress of the period and wearing the hennin-, the
steeple-shaped headdress of ladies of quality. In the
wings, of which two remain, are, beneath similar rich
tabernacle work, other scenes in the Passion — the Last
Supper with the Magdalen washing the feet, the raising
of Lazarus, the Deposition and the Resurrection. In the
last scene the type of the angel at the tomb seems to
carry us back to models and the feeling of two cen-
turies earlier.
There can, of course, be no question of further
insisting, in relation to compositions of this kind,
on the connexion with the great Flemish schools
of painting, with which they are contemporary. Every
one may determine for himself to which well-known
masterpiece this or that work is mostly related, and
how much it has directly borrowed from it or from
others. It is thought that the retable of Claude de
Villa possessed at one time additional wings, painted,
perhaps, by Van der Weyden. What was his part in
the sculptured composition ? Did he, perhaps, furnish
the design ? However it may be, nothing can detract
from the skill of the sculptor who, himself perhaps also
the draughtsman, translated his design with all its
sentiment and colour into sculptural forms. The history
qf the" important piece just described is known. It was
made to the order of a noble Piedmontese family, the head
of which, Claude de Villa, had perhaps official relations
with Brussels, We have, in this circumstance, an
interesting example of the high reputation which
Flemish work enjoyed in Italy at such an important
period of Italian art when so many great names were
preparing to dazzle the world. Most touching is the
73
WOOD SCULPTURE
treatment of the scenes of the Passion that we find in
this and so many other similar works of the period. It
is unnecessary to refer to them in detail, or from this
point of view to make comparisons with the paintings.
Often, as here, the pious founder is to be seen with
his wife, kneeling with clasped, uplifted hands, he
in warlike attire, she with long, trailing robe and the
kennin headdress with its flapping wings and long
veil falling from the point : forming, as it were,
part of the composition, and yet addressing them-
selves in prayer to the central figure. Here, as more
commonly, perhaps, a favourite treatment of the sub-
ject in Flemish art than elsewhere, the blessed Virgin
is supported fainting in the arms of St. John and the
holy women. As we look to-day at the method of pic-
turing these sacred scenes there seems to be nothing
incongruous in a Magdalen at the foot of the cross
attired in a rich ddcolleUe costume of the Middle Ages,
of other women in hennin or turban-like headdresses, in
the dresses of the chief priests and officials, the arms
and accoutrements of the soldiers and their sturdy
Flemish horses. It is the poetry and piety of the last
days of Gothic times combined, before the completed
Renaissance of the sixteenth century made the cultiva-
tion of religious art more exclusively the property of
the rich, and we may be grateful that we owe to the art
of wood-carving an expression of sentiment which in
talent of execution reached a height in its way compar-
able with that of the masters of painting.
CHAPTER V
WOOD SCULPTURE IN GERMANY IN THE FIFTEENTH
AND EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURIES
THE flourishing period of German art in wood-
carving extends from about the middle of the
fifteenth, to the middle of the sixteenth, centuries.
If, during this period, it cannot be said that Germany took
the lead, at any rate it was conspicuously in the fore-
front, and the output of figure work for the adornment
of altarpieces and shrines, for choirs and choir-stalls,
was nothing less than prodigious. But the extent of the
empire was great, and we have to consider the reciprocal -
influences exercised on its various constituent parts, its
commercial position on the main route between the Alps
and the north, between Venice and the Flemish and
Dutch capitals ; on the other hand, internal conditions
of government, the absence of centralization, the exist-
ence of several Free towns, and the restricted means of
communication between the provinces, making, for
example, Saxony and Thuringia dependent on Franco-
nian schools of art — all these things combining to
produce a complication so diverse that it is impossible
to treat the subject comprehensively as a whole within
reasonable limits. Nor can we forget also that the
period with which we shall be most concerned is pre-
cisely the one when there was almost a general upheaval
in everything connected with the arts, resulting partly
from the advancing religious changes, but above all
from the strides which the principles of the Renaissance
75
WOOD SCULPTURE
were making. It is true that Germany remained stead-
fastly faithful to Gothic ideas until close on the end of
the fifteenth century, and resisted the Italian invasion
longer than other countries. All art continued to be
exclusively religious. Even when the enthusiasm for
antique styles had established itself in the German
Renaissance, still, more than with other peoples, Gothic
methods of treatment, in the ornament derived from
natural forms, predominated. The ideas of the transi-
tional period found in Germany a favourable soil for
their development. Gothic here, modern framing there,
with old models revived and adapted, we find greater
independence in the design and construction of separate
ornaments, less subordination to the general architec-
tural motive, more freedom and an increased intelligence
of the individual artist resulting from the extensive
travels in other countries which were the rule in his
wander-years, before he set up for himself with the
grade of master. Remains of earlier art in wood are,
as elsewhere, scarce. There are a few— for example the
doors of St. Maria im Kapitol at Cologne — but we shall
not stay to consider these* There are also a certain
number of twelfth-century Madonna figures and colossal
crucifixes which may find brief mention in the section
devoted to early figure work of this kind. And certainly,
if in wood we can advance absolutely nothing to form a
link between this archaic figure work and the newly
awakened realism which characterizes the prolific period
of the decline of Gothic ideas, it must not be forgotten
that in the thirteenth century the great cathedrals of
Bamberg, of Naumberg, and of Strassburg, were adorned
with statuary which vied with, even if it were derived
from, that of Chartres or of Reims. The earliest impulse
towards naturalism in German wood-carving was un-
doubtedly from the Netherlands, Reaching first the
neighbouring provinces, the new system spread rapidly
throughout the empire, and in those more distant from
76
IN GERMANY
its source would seem to have been adopted with more
freedom than in the north-west, where we find very
numerous importations of the most imposing of Flemish
retables and the like. Indeed, these are more numer-
ously represented in North Germany and in Sweden at
the present day than in their country of origin. We
shall be particularly occupied with the retables and the
single figures made to adorn them, of that part of the
empire in the district of the Upper Rhine comprising
the Franconian and Suabian schools. There will be
found, of course, a general character which, while
strongly allied to that of Flanders from which it
sprung, possesses its own distinctive, absolutely
German type. The faces of the women are rounder
and more of a simple peasant order, those of the men
bony, haggard, and ascetic in the case of the older
ones ; the hands have peculiarly long and knotted
fingers ; the hair of the men is of a uniformly adopted
fashion of masses of thick curls, so uniform as to become
monotonous. The draperies, especially towards the end
of the period in question, carry to the utmost extrava-
gance the complications and angularities of folds,
breaking up into innumerable crooked tucks and
pleats, which, far from being suggestive of reality,
present, on the contrary, an appearance unlike anything
which ordinary stuffs could assume. The inclination
towards naturalism becomes more and more pronounced
until it develops into attempts at reproducing realities
in the human form, regardless of beauty for its own sake,
which are almost revolting. It is the cult of the ugly,
which, from time to time in all arts and in all periods,
seems to exercise such a strange fascination. It will be
necessary to confine our attention almost entirely to the
most important of the two great districts or groups,
which may be distinguished roughly as North German,
with the Lower Rhenish provinces around the centre of
the wood-carving industry at Calcar, and the South
77
WOOD SCULPTURE
German, with which are associated the Franconian and
Suabian schools and their far-spreading spheres of
influence. In the South German area, in contradistinc-
tion to the sway still held elsewhere by painting over
the plastic arts, it will be found that sculpture took the
lead and imposed its influence, whether for good or
bad, upon the art of the painter.
It would not be possible, in a work of a general
character, to examine minutely the differences which
may exist in the character of German wood sculpture
throughout the various divisions of the empire. To
do so would involve a study of German art not only
in sculpture generally, but also in painting; a con-
sideration of the various influences at work during the
period of less than a century, with which we shall
principally deal, and these also with relation to their
evolution in previous times. As already remarked, the
quantity of wood-carving still existing in the shape of
retables and single figures, in addition to decorative
panel and architectural work for the adornment and
accessories of choirs, is prodigious. Museums and
every village church possess examples of altarpieces
and statuary. But although so numerous, these adorn-
ments of the altar, as we find them in the churches, are
by no means universally of a high artistic character or
of more than local interest. As, then, we are not
engaged in a general study of the art of the empire, or
even proposing to attempt a comprehensive account of
its sculpture in wood, our attention will be confined to
a certain number of examples, for the most part selected
from the second of the two great districts or groups
before mentioned. In general it will be sufficiently
accurate to assume that during the period in question —
that is, roughly speaking, from the first half of the
fifteenth to the second half of the sixteenth centuries —
the character of the retable art and of its accompanying
figures has a generic similarity throughout the empire.
GERMANY
A marked characteristic is the indebtedness to the art
of the Netherlands, to the great masters of painting of
the Flemish, Dutch, and Suabian schools, and to the
direct or indirect influence of the contemporary German
engravers and etchers. This influence may indeed from
time to time be called, rather, collaboration. In certain
cases — for example in that of Veit Stoss — the artist
will be considered by some to have been more distin-
guished as an etcher than as a sculptor. That the
wood-carver was very often a painter also, is of im-
portance from another point of view : that is to say,
with regard to the actual colouring of the sculpture.
If we should look around such a fairly representative
collection as is to be found in the department devoted
to wood in the Bavarian National Museum at Munich,
the general similarity just alluded to can hardly be
disputed. It is not always easy, even for an expert,
to distinguish the productions of the Franconian,
Suabian, Westphalian, High German, Low German,
Rhenish, Bavarian, or Tyrolese schools : and experts
themselves will differ considerably in their ascriptions.
It is not, of course, intended to assert that we should
have any difficulties with regard, say, to distinguishing
characteristics of a Liibeck school of the fifteenth
century or others which we associate with Rhineland
work, but it will be unnecessary to concern ourselves
with minute territorial distinctions. Nor does it follow
that because we find such and such an example in
such and such a neighbourhood that the latter is
necessarily the place of origin. Artists themselves
moved about a good deal. Amongst the finest, if not
the finest, work of Veit Stoss is the altarpiece at Cracow
several hundred miles from the town of his adoption
and the school with which he is identified. Further
than this, our information concerning the sculptors
themselves and anything positive to guide us in the
ascription to them of any definite piece is, as elsewhere
79
WOOD SCULPTURE
almost up to the sixteenth century, scanty and vague
indeed.
We shall devote considerable attention to several
important pieces attributed to Tillmann Riemensch-
neider, to Veit Stoss, and to Conrad Meit Yet
whatever value (and this no doubt is very great)
may be attached to the judgment of some leading
critics in assigning certain works to these names, it is,
after all, very often a matter of pure conjecture, and we
have no positive evidence in support There is, as yet,
no finality in the assumption that Riemenschneider is
the master of the Creglingen altarpiece, of the Anna
selbdritt group and the Adam and Eve busts at
Kensington, that Veit Stoss executed the statue of
St. Roch in the Ognissanti at Florence, or Meit the
busts in the British Museum. Over and over again
we meet with work which may be by Stoss, but which
we have no real authority for characterizing otherwise
than of the Niirnberg school. For example, the fine
figures of our Lord and the Apostles of the Deokarus
altar, or the Madonna in a flame-glory of the Sebaldus-
kirche : or, of greater importance from its connexion
with the Madonna of Niirnberg, the Pietk of the
Jakobskirche. We do not know for certain whether
Diirer or Wohlgemut or Peter Vischer worked in
wood. The mystery surrounding the famous Madonna
of Niirnberg is greater still. Though some confidently
see in it the style of Stoss, others are equally struck by
resemblances to that of Vischer or Krafft The fact
remains that it stands by itself, as it were, the single
masterpiece of a genius of whom we know neither the
name nor any other work with which to compare it.
Again, the kinds of wood used furnish us with no
safe guide. Limewood was very general in Franconia
as in Bavaria and elsewhere, and if on the other hand oak
was almost exclusively used in some districts, we
find it also throughout the empire. Thus it is that
80
GERMAN FIGURE WORK
although there may be a remarkable similarity of
style — with regard to several of the best examples
which may be selected for illustration — there is con-
siderable difficulty in finding not only the master to
whom they are due, but even the school. Although
the art of figure sculpture in wood was more popular
in Germany, and more widely practised than anywhere
else, it hardly succeeded in attaining an elevation
comparable with that of Flanders or of Italy. Excep-
tions which will presently be noticed are remark-
able indeed, the more so because they are distinctly
original and national, and find their like in the wood-
carving art of no other country. However reasonable,
then, it may be to form certain groups, the positive
identification with a particular artist is often im-
possible. To take but one only of several cases which
might be quoted — the ' Verganglichkeit ' ascribed to
Riemenschneider. This might be given to almost any
one of the greatest names from Brussels to Munich,
and certainly is more impressed with Renaissance than
with Gothic feeling.
Among the general characteristics of German figure
work of the late Gothic period, varying in importance
as time progressed, are the somewhat stunted propor-
tions of the men, their large heads, bony and elongated
faces, and strained expressions, the long strongly marked
hands and long thin fingers, the stereotyped fashion
of wiglike curly hair, the placid, sweet-smiling and
decidedly round-faced type of the women, and the
evident striving* after a realism which, under the still
existing restraints imposed by Gothic tradition, was
not to be attained until a change in these ideas brought
with it a free study of the nude. Added to these, a
passion for treating the draperies of figures with an
exaggeration of angular folds which becomes irritating.
This exaggeration of a style of which they were by no
means the inventors is well expressed by the French
F 81
WOOD SCULPTURE
term tourmentg, and in German sometimes SchnitzstiL
Wood was the national glory, everywhere employed for
countless single figures and panels in low and high
relief, as a rule richly painted and thickly gilded. In
the altarpieces, following the example of the Nether-
lands, but applying it in a different way, there is a
striving after pictorial effect by placing the figures in
different planes. The workers were no mean artists.
Well instructed in their apprentice days, the practice
was general of passing several wander-years, as the
German term has it, of travel, before attaining a stand-
ing as a master. The two great divisions from which
it is proposed now to draw examples for illustration are
those of Franconia and Suabia. Briefly summarizing,
we may define sufficiently for our purpose, Franconia
as one of ten circles into which the empire was divided,
bounded by Thuringia and Hesse Cassel on the north,
by the upper Rhenish provinces on the west, by Bohemia
on the east, and by Suabia on the south. Suabia
extended to France on the west and to Switzerland on
the south. We shall include therefore the schools
which we may term Franconian, Suabian, Bavarian,
and Tyrolese, and the towns of Niirnberg, Wiirzburg,
Augsburg, Munich, Rothenburg and the Tauber dis-
trict, and Ulm. Incidentally, for special reasons, we
shall travel to the extreme north, to Liibeck and
Schleswig and Danzig of the Baltic provinces, to
Cracow in Poland, to Zwickau in Saxony and else-
where. Artist life of lower Franconia became almost
concentrated in Niirnberg, more strikingly so in the
case of wood-carving than in any other department,
In the popular idea no other art is more identified with
that city. We shall not, therefore, expect to find much
independence in the immediate neighbourhood. At
the same time Wiirzburg, some sixty miles to the
north-west, had, since Bamberg lost the pre-eminence
in sculpture which distinguished it even so late as the
82
LOWER PRANKISH SCHOOLS
middle of the fourteenth century, acquired a distinction
which places it, so far as wood is concerned, in pro-
minent rivalry. Its independence of the Nurnberg
schools, and its condition of individual development, was
in great measure due to its connexion with the neigh-
bouring Suabian art which in the middle of the fifteenth
century was, especially in painting, substantially in
advance of that of Nurnberg. The name of Riemen-
schneider has conferred on Wurzburg a celebrity of a
similar kind to that which, in the case of Nurnberg, is
connected in popular esteem with Veit Stoss. Another
important centre is to be found in Rothenburg in the
valley of the Tauber in Bavarian Franconia. These
lower Prankish schools show in a remarkable degree
the characteristic calm and stolid severity which are
striking features of much of the German retable work.
The same feeling is expressed by the single figures.
An emotional dramatic motive, with exceptions which
will be noted, as a whole is absent. In the best
examples what one finds is a series of well-conceived
and delicately handled single figures and groups. In
a large number of cases, however, they are the work of
self-taught or untrained men who were more or less
able craftsmen. When there was question, therefore,
of such an important work as the altarpiece or shrine
for the relic of the Precious Blood in the chapel for
that purpose in the Parish Church of St. James at
Rothenburg, it is not surprising that the authorities
should have gone elsewhere. Tneir choice of an artist
for the central group was Riemenschneider, of whom
we shall presently hear a great deal more.
The Suabian provinces had been distinguished in
sculpture from early times. From early in the four-
teenth century we meet with great work at Ulm, at
Stuttgart, at Esslingen, at Augsburg, in Bavaria and
throughout South Germany. The Suabian tempera-
ment in art, which we recognize also in our wood-
83
WOOD SCULPTURE
carving, is simpler, more homely in character than the
almost truculent excitability and striving after, if not
attaining, dramatic expression which seems to charac-
terize that of Franconia. But it would appear that
the latter school soon wrested from the Suabian its
pride of place in sculpture, giving the tone to almost
the whole of the empire.
The great altarpiece in the Victoria and Albert
Museum, fully painted and thickly gilt, which will be
briefly described later on, offers a sufficiently charac-
teristic example of the style which prevailed in South
German districts at the end of the fifteenth and be-
ginning of the sixteenth century. Of different degrees
of merit, these sculptures abound in the village churches,
not often of so high a character as the example which
the museum was fortunate enough to acquire so long
ago as 1859, but as a rule of very great interest from
the sincerity and quaintness of the treatment, the homely
character frequently expressed in the peasant type of
the figures, the insight into details of costumes, and of
the manners of the period, and the obviously devotional
feeling with which, at so late a time, when the Renais-
sance and reforming ideas were making a strong
impression, pervade them. Still, for the proper
appreciation of such altarpieces as that at Kensington,
one must imagine them divested of colour, for despite
its gorgeousness and the rich and thickly laid-on
gilding, it would then be seen that the sculptor was
y far the greater artist of the two ; allowing that they
were perhaps identical personally. That Augsburg
should not figure so prominently as Nilrnberg or
Wiirzburg in sculptured woodwork of a religious
character is due no doubt to the terrible destructions
consequent on the Reformation. What little is to be
found in museums we can only assign by conjecture
to this city. Two important pieces, however, will
be mentioned presently. The Bavarian and Austrian
84
BAVARIA AND TYROJL
provinces have much in common with the Suabian,
and the work of the Tyrol is, as one would expect,
nearly related to that of upper Bavaria. We shall find
its best expression in the altarpieces and figure work
of Michael Pacher, and in the figures of the Virgin and
Apostles at Blutenberg. While we have to recognize
the influence which, from its geographical position,
Italy could not have failed to exert, the art at the same
time is unmistakably German. The village churches
and chapels of the old castles of Bavaria and the
Bavarian Tyrol have long furnished almost a gold
mine in the way of old carving in profusion, from
statue work to furniture, to the museums of Vienna,
Munich, and other places. The whole district in fact,
from Hohenschwangau and Innsbruck on the north,
Meran and Salzburg and Lindau in the centre, to
Botzen on the south, has been ransacked for the treasures
which abounded. Cartloads of altarpieces, shrines,
panellings, elaborately carved bedsteads and furniture
of all kinds, now adorn many museums and private
collections. Tyrolese Gothic has a character of its
own. As an example may be cited the bedstead
belonging to Mr. Baillie-Grohman, to which allusion
has already been made. It has more originality,
individual taste, and inventive skill, is less dependent
on a conventional imitation of architectural forms ; is
simpler, more solid, less given to fretwork, geometrical
forms, and fantastically twisted pinnacles and other
dragged-in ornament than we find in northern work
or even in that of Franconia and Suabia, Oak and
other of the harder woods were not common, and
therefore not often used. Instead, we find pinewood
frequently, larch, lime, and chestnut There is an
absence of too exact finish and measurement and an
admirably free treatment of plant-form growth, ever
varying in luxuriantly convoluted and twisted forms,
but not a realistic copy of nature. At times one is
WOOD SCULPTURE
retable of the Brief-Kapelle in the Marienkirche of
Liibeck (Plate VL), the work, in all likelihood, of Jan
Borman of Brussels about the year 1518. Probably
a considerable number of these altarpieces are the
work of Westphalian artists.
The wood sculpture of Cologne of the fifteenth cen-
tury must be briefly passed over, although there is much
to attract attention. Yet, even in such figures as those
of St. George, which are so common, where the saint is
in full armour, bearing a sword with a wavy edge (an
extremely good example is in the Rothschild bequest
in the British Museum), there is an affectation in style
more appropriate to a mignon of the courts : mincing,
rather than of the intrepid soldier. In German wood
sculpture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it is
impossible to help remarking a very considerable
absence of originality both in subject and treatment,
.It is true that the same holds good in respect to other
departments of art, but with these we are not at pre-
sent concerned.
For a complete understanding of the sources from
which the sculptor drew his inspiration, a study is
necessary of the work of the wood engravers and
etchers ; of Diirer, Burgkmair, Beham, Schongauer,
Virgil Solis, and many other contemporary masters of
ornament. Even the greatest of those with whom we
shall presently be concerned — amongst others, Riemen-
schneider, Wohlgemut, Stoss, Haguenauer, or Daucher
— were not only indebted to these sources for ideas,
but whole panels of their most admired altarpieces are
direct copies from them. How far also they were
directly influenced by the Flemish and German masters
of painting, by the Van Eycks, the Memlings, and
Van der Weydens, and, in particular, by the Cologne
school of the fourteenth century, is a subject to which
it is necessary to draw attention, though it cannot
be followed here in detail It must suffice to say that
88
WANT OF. ORIGINALITY
it is connected not only with every remarkable example
to which reference will presently be made, but also
with innumerable other altarpieces and single figures
of the fifteenth century in the churches and museums
throughout the country. Whether directly derived
from paintings or from the work of engravers, the
practice is often not merely a case of inspiration, but of
actual copying, in the composition of the subject. The
arrangement of the folds and the disposition of the
draperies, the fashion of a mantle, a veil, or a head-
dress, the type and costume of such a figure as the
angel of an Annunciation group, the expression, and,
especially in the women, the very model herself, the
flowing hair in long straight slightly curling strands —
all this and more is, it may be said, but the system of
the time, and the interchange of ideas amongst all the
arts was general. Still, it would be remarkable, per-
haps, if a Riemenschneider should have been unmoved
not only by the Flemish primitives, his contemporaries,
but also by those earlier Suabian schools, the glory of
his own country. Beautiful and inspiring indeed is a
Stefan Lochner, to whom Diirer himself in his journal
of travels to the Low Countries contributes his meed
of enthusiasm. From such a one — amongst so many
more whom we know only by the titles of their works
— from these followers of the earlier Dutch and Flemish
mystics, came the strengthening of the impulse which,
without entirely abandoning the ideal, was to add to it
a homely personal realism. It would be a matter of
difficulty, no doubt, to apportion the relative indebted-
ness to this or that source, for with Stefan Lochner
ends the distinct character of the Cologne school.
After him, German, Dutch, and Flemish are merged in
one, or at least the differences are not great The
Germans go for instruction to the studios of Bruges
and Louvain, and the greatest of Flemish painters are
called upon to contribute their masterpieces to the
89
WOOD SCULPTURE
churches of the empire. When, however, we find
such frequent relationships in subject and treatment
between the sculptured altarpieces and the work of the
wood-engravers and etchers, we are led to inquire how
far there was collaboration between their authors. We
know that in many cases such great men as Diirer
were on intimate terms with the sculptors, their
contemporaries: he himself a pupil in Wohlgemut's
studio, as Riemenschneider was also. Was, then,
Riemenschneider, for instance, in later years, free to
copy or adapt for his altarpiece, now in the Bavarian
Museum, Durer's ' Decollation of St. John the Baptist/
or did he do so at the engraver's instigation ? For this
is a direct copy of Durer's woodcut of 151 1. There is no
Diirer cypher or so-called monogram, it is true, but we
seem to be face to face with a similar problem to that
involved in the question of so many honestone and
wood reliefs and medallions on which it is found : a
question still awaiting a final answer. Did Albert
Diirer himself use the chisel of the sculptor? From
his training, from the artistic methods of the time, the
absence of specialization, and the fact that we know
that so many others were at once painters, engravers,
etchers, goldsmiths, bronze-casters, and sculptors in
stone, limestone, wood, or ivory, it is only natural to
suppose that he did. From time to time the saleroom
still professes to furnish examples. As lately as October
1906 a small boxwood statuette of an old man, from the
Keele Hall collection, was ascribed to Diirer and sold
at Christie's for 430 guineas.
The question is of more importance when we come
to consider the boxwoods and medallions of the early
part of the sixteenth century. But when we find so
prominent a wood sculptor as Veit Stoss almost as
prolific in etched work as in sculpture, and, to cite
but one example — the central panel of his altarpiece
in the Academy at Cracow which is a reproduction
90
INFLUENCE OF DURER
of one of his own etchings — it would be interest-
ing to determine what, in general, were the rela-
tionships between the two crafts. That Durer and
his art exercised a considerable influence on the
arts of the German and Italian Renaissance during
the last quarter of the fifteenth century, still more
up to the time of his death in 1528, and even after-
wards, is, of course, unquestioned. The studio or
workshop of Wohlgeniut is of considerable import-
ance in the history of our subject, and here Durer
was apprenticed in 1486 as to the best master of
painting of the day. Then he travels extensively for his
wanderjahre — to Italy, as far as Venice, to Colmar,
Augsburg, Innsbruck, the Tyrol, Trent, Basel, Strass-
burg — before establishing himself in his native city,
Niirnberg, at that time the centre of German art. The
first years of the sixteenth century take him again to
Italy for a long residence, and there he enjoys the
society and friendship of the great Italian painters,
engravers, and sculptors : of Raphael, Bellini, Man-
tegna, and Marc Antonio. More years pass before his
visit to the Netherlands in 1520 brings about a decided
influence in his change of style. But it is almost the
close of his life. Adam Krafft is dead (1509) : Veit
Stoss and Riemenschneider die within a year of each
other (1530-1531), the one at the age of 90, the other
over 70. Diirer's influence is, again, markedly strong
in the work of the boxwood carvers and medallion-
makers. Amongst these he had the greatest admira-
tion for Conrad Meit It is not only on honestone
reliefs and boxwood medallions that the Durer cypher,
the famous 73 adopted by him in 1497, so frequently
calls for explanation. The imperial gallery at Vienna
possesses the admirable carved wood frame for the
great picture known as the ' All Saints/ or the Adora-
tion of the Trinity, and it bears this cypher. As
WOOD SCULPTURE
Thausing says, in his Life of Durer, ' There can be no
doubt that Diirer superintended the carving, rule and
compasses in hand. For who at Nurnberg but himself
could have designed anything which so completely
breathes the spirit of the antique . . . the spirit of
classical forms ? ' Within the panel of the tympanum
appears, in high relief, the Saviour, as Judge of the
world, between the Virgin and St. John: at each
end are angels in the round, blowing trumpets, and
there was another, now missing, at the top. Sculp-
tures in wood, ivory, and honestone, bearing; the
monogram are numerous. This, decorative in itself,
was easily forged, if, indeed, the term may be applied,
and that it was not used, in some cases at least, by
permission. The British Museum possesses the hone-
stone relief of the birth of John the Baptist, now
generally attributed to Georg Schweiger, who would
seem to be the author of many others. The Pierpont
Morgan collection has the famous honestone Venus
Kallipyge, for which it would seem certain that Diirer
made the drawings, two of which now remain : one in
a MS. volume in the Dresden royal library, the other
in the collection of Professor Blasius at Brunswick.
But the relief itself may be the work of Hans Daucher.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a small pear-
wood panel, acquired in 1858, with the 'Judgment of
Paris ' in low relief, bearing the monogram in the fore-
ground of the landscape. Bartsch describes the etching
by Diirer from which this was copied (Peintre graveur,
vii. 134), but as without the monogram. A boxwood
panel in the Morgan collection is after a woodcut by
Hans Burgkmair. In the Vienna Imperial Museum
are two round boxes in boxwood with portrait reliefs
which are free copies from Diirer's ' Frederic the Wise
of Saxony' : within is written in pencil *fyt Stoss den
elder] an attribution no doubt of some early critic. A
small walnut panel in the Kensington Museum is a
92
INFLUENCE OF ENGRAVERS
copy, with slight differences, from the lower half of a
well-known painting of the Rhenish school of the
fifteenth century, the ' Paradise ' picture in the Frank-
furt Museum. Martin Schongauer and Hans Sebald
Beham were, amongst other masters of the upper
German schools, simply mines from which to extract
ideas and turn them into sculpture. From these the
adapters took especially the fashion and fall of the
draperies and the angular folds in which they de-
lighted* Schongauer was perhaps more drawn upon
than any other. Wohlgemut copied many of his
engravings, and even the small boxwood statuettes of
the Madonna — there is an example in the Kensington
Museum — are sometimes, as this one is, practically
copied from his work. Riemenschneider's altarpiece
in the Marienkirche at Salzwedel is from a Schongauer
etching : and the Madonnas in glories of flames, what
are they but direct imitations of the little German
masters of the fifteenth century? The boxwood
medallions to be noticed in a succeeding chapter, even
in the case of such artists as Daucher and Haguenauer,
are sometimes copied from paintings. For example,
the portrait by Haguenauer of Henry VIIL is after
Holbein's miniature at Windsor, and the 'Alchemy'
and ' Grammar/ in the Louvre, are of Diirer inspiration,
tempered by Italian influences. So again, we have the
panels with the triumph of Maximilian by Daucher, after
Duren All this, no doubt, in some cases is legitimate
enough, and the transcription is often admirable, and
comparable in a certain sense to the masterly work of
the line engraver or etcher who translates into tones of
black and white the colour of a painting. On the other
hand, the literal rendering of a black and white engraving
— so far as it can be called literal — by the contours of a
sculptural relief approaching the round, or in the round
itself, is contrary to the character of the two arts, and
leads to abuses of which examples are but too frequent.
93
CHAPTER VI
THE FRANCONIAN, BAVARIAN, AND OTHER GERMAN
ARTISTS AND WORKSHOPS OF THE END OF THE
GOTHIC PERIOD
IT is to be regretted that we are in possession of so
few names of importance which can be attached
to the crowd of sculptured work still remaining
in the churches throughout the country, or now trans-
ferred to many museums and private collections in
Germany and elsewhere. At the same time it must be
repeated that the merit is very unequal. There are
masterpieces, but there is also a vast quantity of poor
work which has little call for notice beyond its curiosity
value and the sentiment which may attach to the
subject, or local interest. Concerning such things
monographs are not wanting. The number of artists,
and of work, of the first class to which it is necessary
to refer in any detail, is therefore restricted : limited,
in fact, to hardly more than half-a-dozen names during
the last century of Gothic art and the transition. Of the
later date, the workers in boxwood and the medallionists
will furnish a separate chapter. '.. What we shall be
concerned with is almost exclusively religious art in
the form of retables and altarpieces, and the statuettes
and groups which in many cases were made for them.
But, when all is said and done, there still remains the
freatest doubt to whom, amongst those named, we can
efinitely assign certain of the most important pieces.
94
FRANCONIAN SCHOOLS
Signed work is of the extremest rarity, and documen-
tary evidence almost wholly wanting. We are ignorant
even of the birthplaces and dates of birth of Veit Stoss
or of Riemenschneider.
The pervading similarity of style and technique,
outside the exceptional pieces which will be selected,
has already been noticed. It must be borne in mind
that these men worked also in stone or bronze, and
we must be prepared to find that in many cases the
methods and actual technique of the sculpture in
stone and wood are almost indistinguishable. In
addition, painter and sculptor were in Germany, as
elsewhere, intimately connected and dependent on
each other. Workshops and schools existed which
were controlled or directed by such masters as
Wohlgeinut, and work turned out commercially to
order. Imitation and copying from the masters of
engraving were rife, and it there were certain man-
nerisms they were often those which were fashionable,
and common alike to the graphic and plastic arts.
Nothing would be more satisfactory than, could we
but do so, to feel that we could distinguish a Riemen-
schneider by a mannerism in style or execution which
could be called peculiar to him and to no other. We
can get near this, it is true, as will be shown later
on, but no further. Probably the masters of the box-
wood models for medals, or for figures, did not confine
themselves to this small sculpture alone, but, at least
in their earlier days, would have had a practical
acquaintance with, and have worked in the large ateliers
whence proceeded the great altarpieces of Creglingen
or of Schwabach, Doubtless there were boxwood
carvers before Hans Schwarz. But with him we are
brought to the beginnings of the Reformation, when
the disuse of images, or at least the demand for them,
must have greatly diminished. Yet the zeal of the
iconoclasts does not appear to have affected Germany
95
WOOD SCULPTURE
in the way it did England or Flanders. To this day
some of the finest carved altarpieces with images, or
the great crucifixes of the Roods, are to be found in the
Protestant churches. But its effects, and the revival of
classical ideas in art, turned the attention of artists
towards the glorification of individuals rather than to
the illustration of devotional ideas. Piety was no
longer the sole incentive. Disregard for fame gave
place, happily for posterity, to a more general desire to
perpetuate a name. Besides the statuary work of the
great altarpieces, the architectural surroundings or
framings — often with elaborate canopy work and plant-
form tracery — cannot be left entirely out of account,
though it is not now proposed to deal with it in detail.
There is ample material to form a separate subject,
and the names of some carvers who seem to have been
especially devoted to it are known. For example, the
characteristic framing of the altarpiece of the Precious
Blood at Rothenburg is ascribed to one Erhart
Foliage and intertwining open work of branches and
tendrils, often of a wild and thorny character, were
much affected, especially for the curtain-like veil which
often hangs from the upper parts of the shrine. There
was room for the exercise of any amount of capricious
fancy and pleasant play of branch and leaf-work, flowing
in every direction, sometimes abruptly broken off,
sometimes mingling with and losing itself in purely
architectural motives of corbel or cul~de-lampe ; dis-
guised in pinnacle form, or a pinnacle itself curled and
twisted into the shape of a half unfolded leaf or opening
bud. A wilderness of vegetation and absence of
symmetry in accordance with nature's own methods,
a naturalism as of things really growing, and in all
stages of growth from the bud to the full bloom, or
already decaying leaf or stem, a perpetual reminder of
growth on earth even in its unspoken application to
the holier themes with which it was connected — all this
96
FRANCONIAN SCHOOL
may be found carved out of a material than which no
other is so appropriate, though it is found also in
abundance in stone sculpture, in the ironworker's
forgings, or the goldsmith's hammered metal-work. We
are bound to connect much fine work with the produc-
tions of Wohlgemut's workshop. In an atelier under
one master of many pupils — and he a painter who
perhaps never carved himself, but left this part of his
altarpieces to his pupils and assistants — there would
be naturally a great similarity in style. His young
men were no doubt allowed to follow pretty freely their
own bent, with the advantage of his advice and super-
vision. Little is known of those who worked in the
same studio as Riemenschneider, but the names, at
least, of many of his contemporaries may be gathered
from the municipal archives of Wiirzburg. These
young artists travelled largely, and learnt to assimilate
foreign styles, interchanging ideas also with all parts
of Germany, with the Rhine or Baltic provinces, with
Thuringia and Saxony, Bavaria and the Tyrol, Bohemia
and Poland. Riemenschneider himself is first included
in the list in 1483, but as painter associate only, not as
sculptor. Of others, who may also have attained an
equally high standing, we know only the names. With
him were contemporaries : for instance, Lorenz Mull of
Landsberg, Michael Bolz of Volkach, Michael Weiss,
Ulrich Hagenfurter, Paul Polsterer, Hans Metz, and
others, but these are but names. Of their work and
manner we know nothing. Amongst them may lie
concealed, perhaps, even so sympathetic and great a
master as the creator of the Niirnberg Madonna. It
would seem to be the fashion, at present, to ascribe to
Riemenschneider anything remarkable of the school,
especially if it is distinguished, by a certain type of
face and curling hair. It is unfortunate that it is only
for the less distinguished work that we are able to rely
on documentary evidence. His reputation, however,
G
WOOD SCULPTURE
need not rest upon what is merely conjecture, as in the
case of the St Anne group and the Adam and Eve
busts at Kensington, while we may give him with
certainty such fine work as the effigy in stone of the
Prince-Bishop Rudolph von Scherenberg in Wiirzburg
cathedral. There is a good reproduction of this
monument in the gallery of casts at Kensington.
CHAPTER VII
VEIT STOSS— RIEMENSCHNEIDER— PACKER—
MULTSCHER— BRUGGEMANN
EVERY lover of German old-world cities knows
Niirnberg, its narrow streets, and the old-
fashioned houses with their half-timbered and
slim-turreted fronts, their richly ornamented gables,
and angles decorated with carved figures. Everywhere
there is evidence of the inborn art of the people of
mediaeval times, and of the religious feeling of the age.
There is little need to name its famous monuments,
popular all the world over; the Schone Brunnen, or
the little goose-man. If the name of Adam Krafft is
mainly associated with stone sculpture, Peter Vischer
and his family with bronze-founding and metal-work,
that of Veit Stoss is the one which has been generally
connected with the wood-carving art of Niirnberg.
Indeed it may be said to have been the only one in
popular estimation of German wood-carving until recent
years, when those of Riemenschneider, Multscher,
Hans Schwarz, Conrad Meit, Hans Wydyz, and a few
others, have come to the front with some information
concerning them, resulting from the unwearied industry
of German writers. It will be sufficient to note that not
one of these names appears in the historical introduction
to the large official catalogue of wood-work in the South
Kensington Museum, published in 1874, which up to
the present day continues to be the only one of that
collection. Nor do we find them alluded to— to name
99
WOOD SCULPTURE
no other histories of art — even in such a presumably
comprehensive compilation as Bayet's Precis de this-
toire de fart. Veit Stoss stands, then, as the official
representative in Germany of wood-carving of late
Gothic times. For all that he was no Heaven-sent
leader. He but followed in the footsteps of others,
who as originators were greater than he. Amongst
them we know the names of two at least : Hans
Multscher, hailing from farther north, and Michael
Pacher, a South Bavarian or Tyrolese master. Of the
beginnings of the art of wood-carving, or of the sister
arts of stone sculpture and metal work, which made
Nvirnberg famous, we are almost entirely ignorant.
Documents and municipal archives give us some names
of artists, but for identification of work with which to
connect them, hardly anything. As a rule Veit Stoss's
earlier altarpieces show that he merely followed a style
already fully developed. He used the same models, or
rather derived his type of woman figure from the same
stereotyped one— small, narrow-busted, and with
sloping shoulders — which had come to be the only one
recognized: the same draperies, the same mixture of
conventional costume and of the fashion of his day.
Little is known of the date or place of his birth, or even
of his nationality. Although Cracow may have been
his birthplace, and his origin Polish, Niirnberg may
claim him as a true son of hers, and his family had
definitely settled there. In the archives of that town
a document is preserved — the contract for the execution
of his great work, the altarpiece of the Marienaltar of
the cathedral — in which he is called ' Magister Almanus
de Norimberga/ The son probably of a coppersmith,
Michael Stoss, he was born certainly as early as 1447 J
for it would seem that he himself had a son born in
1464. Without going further into questions that are
more proper for a biography, we may take it that Veit
Stoss left Nuroberg to settle in Cracow in 1477. He
JOO
VEIT STOSS
had served his apprenticeship, perhaps, and accom-
plished and learnt a good deal in the travels of his
l¥anderjahre\ no doubt had already visited Cracow,
had become a master, and, as the early work of his long
life shows, his art was full-blown. After a stay of
almost twenty years in Cracow, where he must have
executed a considerable quantity of wood-carving, and
applied himself also to etching, Stoss returned to Nurn-
berg, and appears to have worked in the studio
and wood-carving shop of Michael Wohlgemut
There, if not solely responsible for the altarpiece of
the parish church of Schwabach, his, no doubt, is the
carved centre-piece representing our Lord and the
Blessed Virgin enthroned between St. John and
St. Martin of Tours. It is interesting to notice that
in all Wohlgemut's altarpieces the central place of
honour is of carved wood, the wings painted. Thausing,
in his Life of Albert Durer, makes some cogent re-
marks with reference to the carved work which applies,
in a general way, to the Franconian wood sculpture of
the period. He characterizes the figures as * slender
and graceful, the faces, though uniform and round,
childlike, with an innocent look characteristic of the
old Cologne school: antiquated, stationary art, in
glaring contrast to Wohlgemut's paintings of the side-
wings/ The general arrangement, painting, and gilding
of these central figures was probably superintended by
the painter. It is impossible for us to know, now, how
to apportion the credit for the carved work which at
this period (1508) issued from Wohlgemut's establish-
ment, as we must call it, for it had become little more
than a factory. The painter concerned himself with
the panels of the altarpieces alone: the carving was
left to Stoss and his assistants and pupils. We shall
presently return to the subject of the altarpiece of
Schwabach and its connexion with the one at St.
Wolfgang by Michael Pacher, an earlier work which
101
WOOD SCULPTURE
Stoss must have known and more or less copied
from,
Veit Stoss's first business at Cracow on settling there
in 1477 was to undertake the carving of the great altar-
piece of the Marienkirche in that town, a work which
required twelve years for its completion. Considered
by many as the finest of the German retables, we may
take it as representative of the general arrangement of
this class of work in the southern division of the
empire. One of the largest and most elaborate, at
least, it still, although restored and repainted, presents
in essentials its original condition. As the church and
this altar in particular are dedicated to the Blessed
Virgin, it is not surprising that the subjects should
be those illustrative of her life. It is the life as we
know it in the language of the Rosary, of the Joyful,
Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries. Triptych in
arrangement, the high central shrine rests on a predella
carved with the gnarled and almost leafless branch-
work of the tree of Jesse, bearing figures representative
of the genealogy of the Virgin. The principal subject
in the central division of the triptych gives us her
death, or at least — for it is an unusual method of repre-
senting even the earlier stage of the Dormition — the
last phase in her life on earth. She is in the act of
gently sinking to the ground, kneeling, and supported
by one of the apostles, surrounded by the others and
some holy women. Above, still in the central division,
is the Assumption, beneath pinnacled canopy work,
and above this again, amongst elaborate architectural
details, figures in niches, foliage, borders, and other
ornament. The wings are carved in low relief — within,
in six divisions with scenes from the life of our Lord,
on the outer sides in twelve compartments with similar
subjects, mostly of the Passion, On the tomb itself,
in the Resurrection scene, is the monogram, or more
properly the cipher, <?H- of the master.
1 02
VEIT STOSS
Technically we have here, in Stoss's earliest great
work, an admirable illustration of his style for figures in
the round, and in low relief. Those in the central group
are somewhat larger than life size. The strongly marked
anatomy of the heads of the apostles, the long bony
hands and fingers with their swollen veins, the deeply
cut and many-folded tumultuous draperies completely
concealing the figures, the style of the hair and beards ;
and, again, the slender, small-busted type, and costumes
of the women in the low reliefs of the wings, are all
highly characteristic landmarks upon whicn to base
conclusions with regard to other work attributed to
Stoss. There is in the apostle group an almost wild
oriental type, associated with the artist's own tempera-
ment. The heads are those of ascetics, impulsive, filled
with enthusiasm, rough uncultured men for the most
part. The women, tender and lovable, with a distinc-
tion between the mother of Christ herself and the other
women who, in the costumes of the period, are merely
burghers' wives or daughters. Taken as single figures
there is life and movement in the expression and
attitudes of those in the central tableau. Yet, as a
composition, it has the faults of the German system of
assembling, as it were, a number of puppets, rather
than, as in Flemish retables, a more pictorial perspec-
tive method. It suggests an impression of a stage group-
ing without the scenery. There is a disregard of any
logical arrangement, except a general decorative effect.
The draperies are subordinated to this, and have little
relation to the position and movements of the figures
they cover. But no one will dispute the poetical treat-
ment of the whole* For, if the eye may wander from
group to group, from panel to panel, every detail is
full of suggestiveness. What ideas, indeed, are not
evolved, from that central kneeling figure, what sugges-
tions relating to the ending of that earthly life, which we
are left to fill up for ourselves !
103
WOOD SCULPTURE
Many altarpieces, single figures, and panels are with
more or less certainty attributed to Veit Stoss. Madonna
statuettes are numerous, the Holy Child, as a rule quite
unclothed and lying, according to the fashion generally
prevailing, somewhat across in the arms of His mother,
The face of the Virgin is almost always from the same
model, or it would be more correct to say, of the same
accepted type : very long, loose, wavy hair, unfortunately
often crowned with a monstrous crown, as was so much
the fashion not only in sculpture, but in graphic repre-
sentations generally. It would be impossible to give
here a list of works attributed to Stoss, Their variety
also is very great, ranging from those of high quality,
as the Cracow retable, to others after his return to
Niirnberg, of very indifferent merit. For an apprecia-
tion of his style at his best, the altarpiece of the parish
church of Bamberg, representing the adoration of the
Magi, would form a very fair example. This is a
quite late work if executed, as it is said, about 1533,
when the sculptor would have been at least eighty years
of age. Of his low reliefs we may class amongst his
very best work the panels in limewood of the Ten Com-
mandments, now in the Bavarian National Museum.
The influence of the Italian Renaissance, wherever he
may have derived it, is strong in these, and from the
costumes of the women and hats of the men we must
again date them very late in his life : not earlier than
1520.
With no intention of entering into its artistic
merits — indeed with a difficulty of repressing the ex-
pression of a feeling of wonderment that a reputation
should be founded on work of such a character — it
would be impossible to pass without notice the famous
Englische Gruss~- the Angelical Salutation — in the
form of a Rosary wreath, with more than life-sized
central figures, hanging from the vault of the choir of
the Lorenzkirche at Niirnberg. These hanging pieces,
104
HANGING WREATH. THE ANGELICAL SALUTATION. I>\" VKIT STOSS.
SIXTEENTH CENTURY
CHURCH OK ST. LAWRENCE, Ni'RNHKKr,
J'A(JK IQf,
VEIT STOSS
and other Rosenkranze^ seemingly attempts to copy,
in wood, paintings such as those of the Cologne school
of the early fifteenth century, enjoyed great popularity.
The arrangement is almost childish in this work by
Veit Stoss of 1517, as in others of its kind, including
the one by Riemenschneider in the church of Volkach.
Apart from this and its general vulgarity, neither the
drawing, composition, nor execution entitle it to con-
sideration as a work of art. The pose of the two
principal figures is affected, the expression of the faces
unattractive, the hands and position of the limbs those
of an artist's lay-figure. There is neither style nor
consistency in the treatment of the draperies ; the bust
of the Almighty at the top is almost revolting in its toy-
like suggestion, the rosary paternoster medallions are
gingerbread-like, the floating angels of the Christmas-
tree type. These and other details are, in conjunction
with an absence of any redeeming feature, unaccount-
able, except from the point of view of playing down to
the level of popular demands. A somewhat similar
work — at least on similar lines — is the Rosenkrantz
tablet in the Niirnberg Museum. Veit Stoss was a
great maker of crucifixes. The best, perhaps, are those
of the high altar of the Lorenzkirche, of the Spitals-
kirche, and of the church of the Ognissanti in
Florence.
Whatever may be the undoubted high merit of such
examples as the retables of Cracow and of Bamberg, on
the other hand, if we are to accept some work attributed
to him, Veit Stoss descends to the extreme common-
place, not to say vulgarities, and to a pandering to the
taste in devotional representations which nothing but
the chauvinism of his countrymen could demand to be
admired. One looks with astonishment at the puerile
taste and composition > and the inferior execution of
such pieces as the group of the Coronation of the
Virgin in the Niirnberg Museum and at many of his
105
WOOD SCULPTURE
Madonnas, for example, the Maria of the Stosshaus or
the smirking and truly wooden Heilsbronn Madonna
now in the Ntirnberg Museum. It is indeed puzzling
to compare such things with the charming etched work
of the master : with the Madonna of the apple (Bartsch
No. 3), the St. Genevi&ve holding a lighted candle, or
the Piet& (Bartsch 2), all of which have a close relation-
ship with his style and feeling as a sculptor. Veit
Stoss certainly lived to a great age, probably at least to
ninety-five. In private life he seems to have been of a
troublesome, quarrelsome character: so much so that
in a town council decree he is called an irrig und
geschreyig Mann, and for some grave offence was con-
demned to be branded on both cheeks. In his last
years he became quite blind, and died between the
years 1530-1540. Of the many figures ascribed to Veit
Stoss, we may reserve for the section dealing with the
work of unknown German sculptors the Eve of the
Louvre, the St. Roch of the Church of the Annunziata
at Florence, and the crucifix of the Ognissanti at
Florence. There will be naturally some comparisons
between his style and that of Riemenschneider. There
is, for example, a St. John holding a chalice, in the
Berlin Museum, which, ascribed to him, might with
more reason be given to the school of the latter. It
would not be easy to do full justice to his reputation
from every point of view without very numerous illus-
trations. Our National Art Museum at Kensington
contains no example of the work of Veit Stoss, nor
even, for authenticated ones, does the museum of the
Louvre.
Amongst all the German wood-carvers of the
end of the Gothic period there is no more interesting
figure than that of the Wiirzburg master, Tillmann
Riemenschneider. The interest which attaches to him
is all the greater on account of the problems which are
connected with the attribution to him of certain of the
106
RIEMENSCHNEIDER
finest pieces of German wood-carving. These questions
involve at least three of the most important examples
of the late mediaeval work. They affect our own
museum at Kensington, in which are to be found the
charming busts of Adam and Eve, which for a long
time were labelled as the work of Albert Diirer, and
the group of SS. Anne and Joachim: the Imperial
Museum of Vienna, which possesses the painted group
of three figures known as * Fleeting Life ' (Verganglich-
keif}: the Louvre and the recently acquired so-called
Venus : and besides these — perhaps the most important
with regard to suggestion of style — the altarpiece of
the Lady altar of Creglingen, a little village in the
valley of the Tauber, in South Germany. Now, it is
almost solely on the strength of these masterpieces
that we are able to concede so high a position as a
wood-carver to Riemenschneider. It is true that we
have other work undoubtedly by his hand which places
him on a level as a stone or marble sculptor with
Vischer or Kraift, his contemporaries, and that there
are a considerable number of altarpieces, such as those
of Rothenburg, Dettwang, or Miinnerstadt, of statuettes
and other groups, sufficient to establish a high reputa-
tion. Nevertheless, the main interest lies with the
greater works just mentioned, whose authorship remains
at the least doubtful. It would be impossible, within
our present limits, to present the whole case, and it must
be admitted that the consensus of opinion is, so far, in
favour of Riemenschneider. Generally speaking, how-
ever, there is nothing compelling acceptance, and it
would be wiser to leave them in the category of those
other works in painting, engraving, and sculpture which
we are accustomed to designate as by the Master of
such and such a subject : as in the case also of the
Niirnberg Madonna, to which we shall presently devote
considerable attention.
The Wiirzburg school stands, with that of Niirn-
107
WOOD SCULPTURE
berg, in a singularly independent position, if we may
judge from the strong influence which it exercised far
and wide. It is unfortunate that our positive informa-
tion concerning the works which emanated from it
should be so scanty, because a considerable number of
names, at least, can be gathered from the archives of
the city. Amongst them is Riemenschneider, but it is
by no means safe to attach his name to everything,
even of the best, which bears the impress of the school.
Certainly none is more widely quoted as representing
lower Franconian sculptural art. Thilo, Teyl, Dile —
Riemenschneider, or Rymschneider, or Master Dill,
with other variations, as we find him named in docu-
ments and archives of Wiirzburg, appears to have
belonged to a family of Saxon origin which had
established itself at Wurzburg. The date of his birth
is unknown, but as he was said to be a little over
seventy years of age in 1531 when he died, and as he
was inscribed as an associate of the Guild of St. Luke
in 1483, we may take it that he was born about 1460.
From other evidence it is probable that his birthplace
was Osterode, in the Hartz district, that mountainous
chain in North Germany that we associate with the
famous Brocken. Of his civic life as a burgher of his
adopted town information is abundant, but as we are not
now particularly concerned with biographical details, we
need not stop to consider this at length. It will suffice
to mention his marriage and early widowerhood, and
that he occupied high positions in the city council and
became Burgomaster. A three-quarter length profile
portrait of Master Dill, probably the work of his son
Jorg-, dated 1519, is in the possession of the Archaeo-
logical Society of Wurzburg, a medallion in the
parish church of Creglingen, and a bust in the Pietk
of the church at Maidbronn. In accordance with the
custom of his time he began, on the conclusion of
his apprenticeship, his IVanderjahre, and probably
168
RIEMENSCHNEIDER
travelled principally through Franconia, Stiabia, and
in Poland, no doubt devoting considerable time to
the art centre of Niirnberg. But we have no certain
information where, or under what master, he may have
studied, and can only conjecture the influences which
went to form his style. He must have been familiar
with Wohlgemut's studio, possibly even a fellow-pupil
with Diirer, whose designs he afterwards followed in
more than one of his altarpieces, and, whatever per-
sonal qualities were afterwards developed, his early
training was strongly influenced at Niirnberg. But
this would hardly have been through Adam Krafft,
whose first dated work is in 1490, when Riemen-
schneider had been already some time a master. Veit
Stoss, though somewhat an older man, he would have
known also ; but however much similarity in treatment
we may find between the two, these are due to the
following by both of the same traditions rather than to
personal relations and community of feeling. The
temperaments, indeed, of the two men and their
methods of expression were widely different By nature,
Stoss was rough and undisciplined, as was his charac-
ter in general ; wanting in refinement, indifferent to a
research of beauty, his work giving no evidence of a
nobility of feeling, descending to the commonplace and
even to vulgarity: his madonnas often coarse and of
pure peasant type. Riemenschneider shows in his
work an amiable disposition, almost womanly refine-
ment, sincerity of purpose, and a tender sympathy with
the sentiment he endeavours to illustrate. His saintly
women are chosen from an idealized type of young,
fresh, and innocent German womanhood, with an open
candid expression from which a certain smiling coquet-
tishness in no way detracts. We must not, however,
forget the sources which influenced him in this respect
He was fond of clothing his holy women in the costume
of the time, whether of the gorgeously apparelled lady
109
WOOD SCULPTURE
of fashion or with the plain wimple and stuffed head-
dress, or of the serving maid as in his St. Martha.
If we are to accept the attribution to him of the dis-
puted Eve or the Magdalen, he was not, in his later
years at least, averse to the nude, but his inclination
towards naturalism would never have allowed him to
become coarse and offensive as it pleased others of his
contemporary wood sculptors to be. In common with
the practice of the Lower Franconian and Suabian
schools generally, his work, even for altarpieces, was
limited, except for low reliefs, to single figures and
small groups arranged in rows, without attempting
dramatic effect as a whole. This may be said without
excepting even such compositions as the Creglingen or
Rothenburg retables. We do not expect from him
strong stagelike treatment. A group such as the Anne
and Joachim fragment at Kensington has plenty of
story to tell in a quiet way, and the greatness of his
talent is fully exemplified in the twelve seated apostle
figures in the Bavarian National Museum. These are
figures, fragments no doubt of an altarpiece, than
which no others could be better chosen as typical of
Riemenschneider, in character, in design, and in hand-
ling. They are, of course, intimately connected with
the ascription of the Creglingen retable.
The German schools of the little masters of
engraving were, in the early days at least of Riemen-
schneider's apprenticeship, still in their infancy. To
Schongauer in particular must be traced something
of the type of the women's faces which is almost
constant in his altarpieces and in his single figures,
from the Eve, in stone, of Wiirzburg, to the Mag-
dalen of Miinnerstadt We have no documentary
evidence of his IVanderj&hre, but if he did not
actually travel in Italy or Flanders he must have
been well acquainted with the work of the great
masters of his time. Prague was not far off, and the
no
RIEMENSCHNEIDER
early Bohemian school of painting would have been
familiar to him. He must have seen many great
Flemish retables even in his own country, but as a rule
he did not attempt to imitate their pictorial style,
reserving for the wings, and in lower relief, his skill as
a narrator of stories. As an artist Riemenschneider
was faithful to the last to Gothic traditions. Exclud-
ing such a disputed piece as the Vienna Allegory, there
is hardly a trace of Italian influence and the Renais-
sance. Throughout all his work it would be difficult
to find anything resembling the undisciplined independ-
ence of Veit Stoss. It is dignified, calm, logical,
restrained. He never overdoes — as was so common a
fault of his time — the expression of the painful, har-
rowing sides of the sacred scenes. In general, his
figures, so far as the draperies permit us to characterize
them, are slim in proportions, the shoulders narrow
and sloping, the heads of the men large, and rendered
larger by the wiglike profusion of curling hair : those
of the women, on the contrary, small The cheek-bones
are exaggerated in prominence, the hands long and
rather thin, the veins strongly marked, the fingers also
long and delicately formed, but the hands small almost
to distortion in his later work. The women's figures
have the same straight falling shoulders, long oval
faces, somewhat almond eyes, small breasts, very
commonly the little finger bent over the next one, the
feet rarely showing. The heads of the evangelists in
the Berlin Museum are decidedly too large. Often,
especially in the late work, the contour of the face runs
from the prominent cheek-bone in a sharp narrow
angle to the chin. And for the younger type we have
as in the St. Totnan, St. Kilian's deacon, that con-
stantly recurring sweet-smiling, rather sly, pretty boy
or blarneying youth.
What cannot fail to strike the student of figure
work of the Riemenschneider school is the hardly
in
WOOD SCULPTURE
ever varying type of face either for the men or the
women. We might say that they were all from
one model, but that it is not likely that the living
model was used at all. His men have all the same
strong family resemblance, as of one stock, from the
grandfather down to the youngest grandchild. Not
only so, but the women belong to the same family
also. There is a wearisome, ever-recurring repetition
of the same conventionally curling locks, flowing in
wiglike fashion over the shoulders, but for this we
must blame the exigencies of the prevailing taste. For
the Madonnas, though the type of face is so constant
in form and expression, there would seem to be two
varieties, but mostly a dark round face with broad fore-
head, sometimes bareheaded, sometimes with a veil
simply draped on one side. The sentiment expressed
is one of youthful grace and humility. The Holy Child
is also always of the same type : curly-headed, lying
across on the right or left arm of His mother indiffer-
ently, the upper leg bent upwards. But all this is not
original, or confined to Riemenschneider, but merely
the prevailing style of the time. On the other hand
there is a treatment of the mouth in his holy women
which is decidedly characteristic. The eyes, somewhat
diverging, have a languishing expression. The neck,
thick and sturdy in the men in conformity with the
German fashion in art of the time, is thin and graceful
in his women figures, and in the younger men. One
might go so far as to say that the same model is to be
found in the Magdalen of Miinnerstadt and the St
John the Evangelist of the Berlin Museum. Generally,
the influence of Wohlgemut in the Madonna figures is
strong. The older women follow the customary types.
If the name of Riemenschneider is to be attached
to the St. Anne group in the museum at Kensing-
ton, it will be in evidence of masterly execution, of a
technical use of his chisel with which no comparison
RIEMENSCHNEIDER
can be made in any other German work of the kind.
The study of the draperies is important. There is, of
course, first, the conventional type proper to the figures
of the apostles as we find it in those in the Munich
Museum and in the Creglingen altarpiece. Generally,
they would seem to be of a thin, somewhat stiffened,
linen material, the long pleats crinkled up, as it were,
and breaking off at acute angles : forming in this way
a decorative arrangement of lines which seemed to hit
the taste of the time, but led to extremes of exaggera-
tion which, according to our ideas, are unmeaning and
irritating, besides being monotonous. They form a
series of plane surfaces set up at various angles : a suc-
cession of numberless small spiny folds. The idea is
conveyed of a suddenly arrested movement converted
into a frozen rigidity. The Zwickau Pieti, which is else-
where noticed (pp. 86, 138), is an example of an admirable
work in which this system is carried to excess. The
whole question concerning it is, however, one in which
the styles of the wood and copper-plate engravers of the
time, and that of the Flemish, Cologne, and other
schools of painting, have to be taken into account.
Riemenschneider was probably not strong in the
anatomy of the undraped figure. The time had not
arrived — for him at any rate — of emancipation from
ecclesiastical traditions and restrictions. Even if we
allow him the authorship of the Eve of the Louvre,
his position would not be a high one, and the stone
Eve of Wtirzburg cathedral has no claims for con-
sideration from this point of view. On the other hand,
the head, at any rate, of the masterly stone sepulchral
effigy of Bishop Rudolf von Scherenberg in the
cathedral of Wiirzburg is apparently evidence of con-
summate knowledge and truthfulness. But may not
this be due to some extent to the practice of making
post-mortem casts which was becoming usual in late
mediaeval times? Riemenschneider's sculpture in
H 113
WOOD SCULPTURE
stone hardly comes within the scope of this book. As
a matter of fact, though it cannot be altogether left out
of account by the student or admirer of his work in
wood, the relationship is slight, and points of contact
would not be easy to determine. For my own part I
can attach little value to the endeavour to establish a
theory, as one critic at least has done, connecting
Riemenschneider with the Master of the Niirnberg
Madonna through some analogies of costume with his
sepulchral effigy of the Countess Dorothea, von Wer-
theim at Griinsfeld. It was to stone sculpture that he
seems first to have applied himself, and one of the
earliest pieces from his hand — the tombstone of Prince-
Bishop Rudolf, of which there is a cast in the Kensing-
ton Museum — would of itself suffice to assure his
reputation. I am free to admit that I have derived no
assistance concerning the questions which have arisen
of the authorship of some important works attributed
to Riemenschneider from comparison with the style or
technique of his work in stone.
We may now turn to the retable of the Herrgotts-
kapelle at Creglingen, an example which, rightly or
wrongly, has been accepted as typical of the style
of Riemenschneider (of this there should be no
doubt), and, on the other hand, is amongst those
pieces about which reasonable scepticism may be
permitted as to his authorship. The date of the
work is probably from about 1495 to 1499, and an
ascription therefore to Riemenschneider must in the
first place put out of the question the date 1487
carved on it, for Riemenschneider was then an apprentice
at Wiirzburg, having gone there in 1483. In any case
it is interesting to note that the most important work
of both Stoss and Riemenschneider was executed at a
very youthful a#e. The central group represents the
Assumption of the Virgin, the figures a little less than
life size. The apostles, some kneeling, are gathered in
114 -
ST. ANNK AND ST. JOACHIM. SUABIAN SCHOOL.
KARL.Y SIXTEENTH. CKNTURV
VICTORIA ANI> AI.BfCRT MUSKUM
I'ACiK tl6
THE CREGLINGEN ALTARPIECE
two groups below, watching the ascent borne up and
attended by angels. On the wings, in rather high
relief, are scenes in the life of our Lord, and on a
panel is an extremely characteristic group of two angels
floating in the air upholding the miraculous Veronica
handkerchief. The wing panels with the angelical
salutation have neither original character nor are they
good in execution. In the Annunciation scene, on the
left wing of the triptych, the following of a master of
painting such as the Maitre des Moulins in the same
subject is apparent in the composition generally, and
even in such details as the disposition of the draperies
and the flow of the train of the Virgin, the form and
position of the bed, the book, the reading-desk and
other accessories. But the two groups of the apostles
are admirable in the expression of the figures taken
separately, and in the treatment of the draperies. The
retable, which measures, over all, about 21 feet in
height by 10 in width, with the wings open, is not
painted nor was it intended to be, and although we
have many examples of the sculptor's painted and
gilded retables and figures, we have no knowledge
what may have been his part in this decoration.
As the altarpiece of Creglingen was to be left un-
coloured, the carving had to be worked up to the
highest perfection of finish. In some other cases bad
workmanship is, to some extent, concealed. One finds
too, not unfrequently, these carved works cleaned of
the original polychrome, and redaubed with modern
painting. Indeed we should be grateful that we may
now admire in the pure surface of the wood such
admirable appropriateness to the material and per-
fection of execution as in a group which the museum
at Kensington possesses. This is a fragment from a
Sippenaltar with the figures of the parents of the
Blessed Virgin.
A very few descriptive remarks are needed to
WOOD SCULPTURE
accompany the illustration here given (Plate ix.).
It is a portion, no doubt one half, of an arrangement
very popular in Germany known as a Sippenaltar,
or Anna selbdritt group. Elsewhere the term Holy
Family is, it is well known, usually applied to the
Virgin and Child, St. John Baptist, and St. Joseph.
The Anna selbdritt groups are very frequently found,
the main idea being St. Anne teaching her daughter to
read. But there is generally the strange inconsistency
of the Blessed Virgin grown up and holding the Holy
Child, even if herself standing or sitting on the lap of
her mother. We shall find this, for instance, later on,
in the case of a group in the Kensington Museum there
called English work (Plate XXXVIIL). In an example
in the Erfurt cathedral by Riemenschneider, or of his
school, Anna holds the Holy Child on one arm, and on
the other a doll-like crowned figure of His mother with
an open book on her lap. In another, in the Bavarian
National Museum, the elder woman is seated, the Holy
Child stands on her knee, and the Virgin, grown up,
is seated on her other knee, learning to read from the
usual open book. Often again the holy women are
seated side by side, the Child playing between them.
A divided piece, of which, however, the two halves are
still existing, is in the Bavarian National Museum
(No. 1247). This, also, is of the Franconian school,
and here we have St. Anne and St. Joachim, St.
Joseph, Salome, and Alpheus, but the Infant is absent,
and it is not a reading lesson. The Kensington group
(Plate ix.), if by Riemenschneider, may be quite late in
date: the costume and stuffed headdress pointing to
some time between 1495 and 1520. It was at one time
attributed to Georg Syrlin of Ulm, and indeed it is not
easy to dissociate the Suabian and Wiirzburg schools. A
piece composed in an identically similar manner is said
to be in the possession of Prince Ottingen-Wallensteiru
As an example of this particular side of German wood-
116
t**'i^***<< :*"^^*^*ft!»>''lW w 4 v.WUW^. ^ft^
j , t^st?.-i"SW^fc4^^ *" " "* tJJ™M*""> * '''''* >•»•>")• *' •
RIEMEN SCHNEIDER
carving of the late Gothic period, the Kensington group,
by whomever executed, is unsurpassed, and must be
ranked among the masterpieces of the art. The figures
are human beings, portraits, it may be said perhaps,
from life models. The drapery no longer conceals the
admirably posed figure and arms of the seated woman,
and though we may regret the still somewhat tormented
folds falling in veil-like form from the headdress, yet
even these are masterpieces in that particular style.
And above all to be remarked are the clean sharp-cut
handling and precision of the chisel, the understanding
and right use of the material, absolutely to be dis-
tinguished in this case from the technique of stone
sculpture, and the wonderful treatment of the hands of
St. Anne, to which, in wood, for their art, I can only
compare those of the Niirnberg Madonna.
Comparisons have been made between this figure and
the stone monument of the Countess Dorothea von Wer-
theim by Riemenschneider. There are analogies, it is
true, in the form of headdress and in the drapery folds,
but nothing could be less convincing by way of proof
of the identity of the sculptor than the general feeling.
The designer of the one, great as he might be accord-
ing to older traditions, is still wedded to convention,
with no sign that he has yet taken advantage of the
new realism, The other has worked straight from
nature. The question is, are they or can they be the
same man ?
A work more definitely characteristic of Riemen-
schneider's style, and in some ways a finer piece than
the Creglingen retable, is the one known as the altar
of the Precious Blood in the church of St. James at
Rothenburg, in the Tauber valley (Plate x.). We need
take the central group of figures alone — they are those
of Our Lord and the Apostles at the Last Supper — and
compare them, for example, with the twelve apostles
of the Munich Museum. They are a little less than
117
WOOD SCULPTURE
life size, very fine indeed in composition and in
technical execution, and far outweigh in importance
the low reliefs on the wings and the long spiny
pinnacle work and other ornament characteristic of
late German Gothic. Although of a different character
from the scenic grouping of Flemish retables, the
arrangement has a certain dramatic force, the natural-
istic figures seemingly engaged in an animated con-
versation with Our Lord and with each other. There
is an earnest solemnity in the figures of these men,
all with that family likeness already remarked upon,
the somewhat too large heads, the flowing curly hair,
and all, except four, bearded. There is but one of a
different type : a rounder, fuller, shaven face. The
middle figure, standing in the foreground, and carrying
a purse, of course is Judas. The exposed parts of the
figures — the hands and feet — are of the best style, the
draperies of soft thin stuffs, of the prevailing type and
not exaggerated. In its intense naturalism this fine
altarpiece may indeed be called truly representative of
German work of the kind, of southern German or
Suabian origin. From documentary evidence it may
be confidently assigned to Riemenschneider, and we
can be well content to accept it as an example of the
best work of this class of his school. At the same
time, in several other cases, there is no obligation to
go further.
Still without positive authentication, and yet of
even more value in the endeavour to lay down a type
in which we may reasonably recognize the style of
Riemenschneider not only as the wood was left by
the chisel, but also with the full addition of colour
and gilding, is a charming shrine with predella, in
the Munich Museum (No. 1330), (Plate XL). In the
centre are three nearly life-sized statuettes, the Blessed
Virgin, St. John the Baptist, and St. Sebastian. It
is, of course, of no particular consequence that we
118
I'ANKLS. ASCRIBE H Tt) VEIT STO.SS
RIEMENSCHNEIDER
find them so grouped, and we may consider them as
single figures. The wings have, in low relief, the sub-
jects taken from Schongauer's and Diirer's engravings
to which allusion has already been made : the baptism
of Christ after Schongauer (Bartsch 8), the decollation
after Diirer (Bartsch 126). In passing we may note
the decapitated body of St. John Baptist clothed,
as it were, in a curly maillot of hair, as we shall
find presently the Magdalen in the Mtinnerstadt altar-
piece. The Madonna statuette is of the style which
we should wish to characterize as typical of Riemen-
schneider. Simple and unaffected, sweet in expression,
smiling, with the grace and charm in their German way
almost of an early French fourteenth-century Madonna
group, both Mother and Child are of a refinement without
mannerisms, that would be difficult to match in any-
thing of the kind which has come down to us. All
three figures would well bear more detailed description.
They represent the religious art of Germany in the hands
of a master born and nurtured in Gothic traditions
at a period when many influences were at work,
portending changes of an absolutely revolutionary
character, and are in themselves standing evidences
of the effect of these changes at the close of his career
when the old order was so soon to be utterly and
entirely displaced by the new. The date of the work
can hardly be later than 1515.
We must pass by the third very fine altarpiece
ascribed to Riemenschneider — that of the Holy Cross
at Detwang, remarking only the crucifix as an example
of his work of that kind, and come to the one of the
parish church of Munnerstadt -in the same neighbour-
hood. We have here a work which can be authenti-
cated from the archives of the town, and one of
Riemenschneider's earliest productions when he could
hardly have been more than thirty — perhaps only
twenty-five — years old. It is, in fact, the earliest of
WOOD SCULPTURE
which there exists documentary evidence of date, and
it is not altogether unimportant to note — in relation
to the principal figure — that the freestone Eve of
Wurzburg cathedral is nearly contemporary. The
altar is dedicated to St Mary Magdalen, and we seem
to have in it the mixed histories of the Magdalen of
the gospels, of Mary the sister of Lazarus, and the
legend of the Penitent of the desert. Portions of this
altarpiece were dispersed about a hundred years ago,
and we shall only concern ourselves with the central
figure now in the Munich Museum (Plate XIL). This
is the Magdalen of Miinnerstadt — a figure standing
almost on tiptoe, with hands clasped, the face of
the type which is, or should be, associated with
Riemenschneider's Madonnas and women figures — for
example, with the Assumption of Creglingen — long
ringlets streaming over the shoulders, the body almost
entirely clothed with a tight-fitting maillot, as it were, of
silky curls, leaving only the bosoms, feet, and hands ex-
posed. The idea is curious. It can hardly be asserted
that at any period of his career there is evidence of
intelligent study of Italian art or models on the part
of the German sculptor. Yet this figure suggests, in
pose and in the treatment of the limbs, the follow-
ing of Italian influence : for instance, Donatello's John
the Baptist in the Church of the Frari at Venice, or
is to be compared with such a type as Benedetto da
Majano's Magdalen. This last the Italian master
presents as an aged emaciated figure, clothed in long
flowing hair, with a suffering expression : the attitude
and clasped hands, however, are similar. But the
German Magdalen is plump, smiling, graceful, made
up, as it were, in travesty. If devotional, the feeling
is expressed in a different way, though one is not much
surprised that in a later age those responsible for the
Miinnerstadt altarpiece considered the figure to be
inappropriate, and caused it to be removed.
1 20
, THK MAOI.AI.KN <>K Mi'NNKRSTAl.T. ,.Y K.KM KNSCI.N KM.I-
Ml'NlCH Ml'SKfM
:j. PKN1TKNT Al AMDAL-^N . liV I )OX ATK1,I.< >
RIEMENSCHNEIDER
The tombstone of Tillmann Riemenschneider was
discovered in 1822 in the course of some reparations
to the churchyard near the cathedral of Wurzburg.
The master is represented in his official costume as a
member of the City Council. The inscription runs :
'Anno Dfii MCCCCCXXXJ am abent Kiliani starb der
ersam und Kunstreich Tilmann Rimenschneider Bild-
hauer burger zu wurczburg dem got gnedig sey
Amen/ Beneath is a shield on which is the sculptor's
mark or cipher ^j^
The so-called busts of Adam and Eve in the
Victoria and Albert Museum seem to have been ob-
tained about fifty years ago, and were then, and for
many years after, said to be the work of Albert Diirer.
Mr. Hungerford Pollen's official catalogue, published
in 1874, which, however much out of date, still remains
the only catalogue, or even list of the woodwork of the
museum, says that these busts were ' probably executed
from some sketch or drawing of Diirer, not by that
artist himself, whose works of sculpture are exceedingly
scarce/ It is hardly too much to say that forty years
ago very little attention had been paid to German wood-
carving, and such names as Riemenschneider and Meit
were unknown, in England at least. Whether these
small busts represent our first parents, and whether
they are completed works in their present form, or
fragments of full-length figures, will not affect our
judgment that they are masterly in idea and execution
to the highest degree. Both are represented in the
first bloom of youth, Adam with an intense earnestness
of expression, the eyes large and wide set, the contour
of the face diminishing from the cheek-bones in a
somewhat acute angle to the chin, the mouth and lips
of the utmost delicacy of modelling, the chin dimpled,
the ears partly showing under the thickly curling
masses of hair which almost conceal the forehead.
121
WOOD SCULPTURE
There is a thoughtful, melancholy, almost worried
expression. Clearly, here, there is Italian influence,
and evidence of more than superficial knowledge and
training. Yet there was reason in the early con-
nexion (to call it no more) with Diirer: even Van
Eyck, in these two figures, would not be so very
far a cry. Eve, again, is a mere girl, hardly developed,
sweet smiling, full of intelligence, her hair divided
over the forehead and gathered in a great twist round
the head, the eyes and mouth those of a twin sister
to Adam. In the modelling and general treatment of
eyes, eyebrows, and lips, there is, notwithstanding, a
curious divergence which cannot be passed over in
the argument.
These two most important works are now labelled
as by Riemenschneider, and it must be allowed
that at the present time this ascription has received
almost universal acceptance. But for those who have
carefully studied not only what we have documen-
tary evidence to justify us in giving to him, but
also the disputed works such as the Eve of the
Louvre, the Creglingen altarpiece, or the Anna and
Joachim group, surely the grounds for this judgment
must be far to seek. Should we not find, on the contrary,
much which would seem conclusively to show that
though -we may, almost in desperation, look around for
some master with which to connect them and fail to
find him, the name of Riemenschneider is not the one
which, without any hesitation, springs to the lips?
What work, indeed, that we know to be by him is to be
selected to be placed beside these busts for comparison ?
The very material — pearwood — from which they are
carved is one which, at the least, would have been
unusual with him, and contrary to his general style.
His work is nearly always in oak or limewood, and one
would think that we should look rather for the artist
amongst the class of his contemporaries who were
122
1. PORTRAIT DUSTS. BOXWOOD. SIXTEENTH CENTURY
,',R1THH MUSEU'1
2. BUSTS, PEARWOOD. GERMAN. SIXTEENTH CKNTUkV
VTCTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM
PACKS 122, T$6
[R I'ERGAMUCIlKM'r (" FLEET! N(J LI IV) OR
l"YOaTlI, I1KAUTY AMI) Ut
roLVCHKOMEl). S1XTEKNTIM.FNTUKV. SCULI'TUR l.NKNOWN, AMItRAS OII.I.WTFUK, IMI'KK'IAL MUSKIIM, VIKNNA
RIEMEN SCHNEIDER
connected with the goldsmiths — the Meits or Ludwig
Krugs. It is difficult indeed to appear to differ when
so much unanimity seems to prevail. So lately even
as 1906 these busts were lent to the exhibition of the
Burlington Fine Arts Club and were there ascribed to
Riernenschneider. Yet, we may still be permitted to
hold a contrary opinion, and in a case of this importance
to express it. For my own part, while I feel that I
have no alternative name to offer, even as a suggestion,
I am totally unable to see the same feeling, the same
style or handling, much less so great a talent, in the
sculptor of the Magdalen, of the Creglingen altarpiece,
of the Munich apostles — "even of the Anna and Joachim
group — as in these busts. They belong to a different
age : to a movement, at least, with which there is no
evidence to show that Riemenschneider was connected,
or even sympathetic.
At one time it seemed to be the fashion to
attribute any kind of fine figure work to Riemen-
schneider. Even so long ago as 1857, before the days
of illustration by photography, when Ausm' Weerth
published his fine work Denkmaler des christlichen
Altherthums in den Rheinlanden, the wonderful group
of coloured figures known as the ' Verganglichkeit ' in
the Imperial Museum, Vienna, was ascribed to him,
and we may take it here under his name. It is an
allegory or personification of ' Fleeting Life ' — per-
haps, rather, a ' Memento Mori ' — designed to impress
upon us the vanities of human existence. Dances of
death, whether single figures or in groups, were favourite
subjects in late Gothic times: for example, amongst
other celebrated series, the painting by Hans Baldung
(1476-1545), in which is represented a young girl nude,
an old woman, and Death. In the ' Verganglichkeit '
(Plate xiv.) we have three nude figures . standing back
to back: a youth, a girl in her full beauty, and a
decrepit old woman, marked with all the infirmities of
123
WOOD SCULPTURE
age, even to realistic and repulsive details of flies
crawling over her yellow shrunken skin, and other
horrors. It is a masterpiece by an artist with con-
summate knowledge of the treatment of the nude : of
such training and practice in the antique as we have
no reason to believe fell to the lot of Riemenschneider.
His school had been rather that of Gothic traditions,
dying out, no doubt, towards the end of his life, but,
still, more tenaciously adhered to in Germany than any-
where else. The unknown carver is more likely a
Renaissance master of a considerably later date. We
have in it realism at it's highest, yet not such absolute
following of nature, as with less consummate art is
pushed to extremes by Wydyz, Daucher, and others, in
their small figures and panels for caskets in boxwood,
pearwood, and honestone, which are frequent in mid-
sixteenth century work. The Verganglichkeit group is
fully coloured, and is still in the original leather case
in which it was enclosed when acquired from the
Augustinian collegiate church of St. Florian in Upper
Austria, having an opening through which each figure
of the group, turning on a pivot, could be exposed in
turn. The ascription to Riemenschneider would seem
to have arisen in one of those haphazard ventures or
guesses, started one scarcely knows how, or by whom,
which by repetition in course of time acquires authority.
If it rests on anything at all, it might be on some
fancied resemblance to the Eve of Wiirzburg, but this
is of quite another type of art. It is suggestive also to
notice that Tonnies, in his monograph on Riemen-
schneider, thinks both this group and the Adam and
Eve busts to be by the same hand. Equally conten-
tious as to origin, and similarly ascribed to Riemen-
schneider, on account of a certain resemblance to the
type of some of his Madonnas, or of his Magdalen, is
the Eve of the Louvre, There is, of course, a striking
analogy in form and expression of the face, in the
124
I. ST. SEBASTIAN. ATTRIBUTED TO CRISTOFORO FOPPA
VICTORIA. AND ALBERT MUSEUM
POLVCHROMED F1GURK. ATTRIBUTED TO R1EMENSCHNE1DER
LOUVRE MUSEUM
PAGES 125, 258
CJKOUP. THK VIRGIN, ST. JOHN AND ST. MAKV M AC) DAI ,KN. KI.KMISI1,
SIXTICKNTH (..MONT.URY
X'IC'I'OKIA ANI» Al.KKKT ;Mi:sia:M | SA1 .Tl N< i UI^.UJ KST |
RIEMENSCHNIEDER
treatment of the long flowing hair in long wavy
separate strands, and to a certain extent the anatomy.
Yet, while it is by no means unreasonable to accept the
ascription to Riemenschneider, we may remember that
the type or model was a favourite one with others
of his school. Besides, as a work of art, the Eve
in wood is greatly superior to his Eve in stone.
Entirely German, of the school, and with some of
the mannerisms of that school, of the Magdalen,
it is much nearer in refinement and elegance to the
level of the Verganglichkeit group. Equally with the
latter it is coloured, and it is right to say that the
reproduction here given is, on this account, faulty. By
Daun, this Eve has been given with certainty to Veit
Stoss. He finds the style of Stoss in the prominent
chin, the short neck, the thick upper lip, the nose, the
eyebrows ; and analogies to other carvings, and in
etchings, by the Niirnberg artist. It is not easy to
follow him here. On the contrary Veit Stoss would
seem to be the farthest removed of any sculptor of the
time that could be selected.
There are two groups in the Salting collection of
the Victoria and Albert Museum ascribed to Riemen-
schneider, one of which is here reproduced (Plate XVL).
For many characteristics of the Franconian schools
of the latter part of the fifteenth century, we may refer
back to an earlier wood-carver of the Bavarian or
Austrian Tyrol, Michael Pacher of Bruneck. Exactly
how far and how much of the development of the art
of the Niirnberg and Suabian masters may be traced
to his influence would be difficult to lay down with
precision. He is the master and leader, rather, of the
art of the more southern districts of Upper Bavaria
and of the Tyrol. It is necessary to pass quickly over
all these German altarpieces, although every village
church, almost, possesses them, together with single
figures which, if not in every case of the highest art,
125
WOOD SCULPTURE
have considerable attraction from their quaintness and
originality. The National Museum at Munich has, of
course, an admirable collection of the finest examples.
Little is known of the history of Michael Pacher.
Born at Bruneck in the Pusterthal, about 1430-1440,
he flourished probably about the middle of the fifteenth
century, and died at Salzburg in 1498. Both painter and
sculptor, he is most generally recognized as a master in
the former art. Living near Italy it was natural that he
should be influenced by the Italian, and especially the
Venetian schools of painting, and this influence may
be, to a certain extent, traceable in his carved wood.
Still, in this, it is not very marked, and he remains
distinctly German. Amongst other famous altar-
pieces by Michael Pacher, the most remarkable is
the one made for the church at St. Wolfgang in 1477.
Indeed, it is in many ways unsurpassed by any others in
the empire. Pacher, as already mentioned, was in the
first place a great painter, and in this piece his talents
in both directions are admirably conjoined. He loved
rich colouring, rich garments, crowns and jewelled
ornaments, and we have all these in profusion. The
subject is the Coronation of the Virgin, or perhaps
rather her reception in the heavenly kingdom. Mary
kneels, with crown on head, before the Almighty,
Himself crowned, robed, and throned as an earthly
potentate, the right hand raised in blessing, the left
resting on an orb. The Blessed Virgin herself wears
a golden mantle with a long train in voluminous folds,
treated with the mannerism which is characteristic of
the time. Her head, already crowned with a gorgeous
crown, is modestly bent and inclined to one side. The
large single figures on the right and left are St. Wolf-
gang, patron of the town, and St. Benedict, who is
represented as a mitred abbot bearing a crosier, and
holding in one hand the poisoned chalice. The mitre,
of course, is by artistic licence. Around, in a magnifi-
126
0
MICHAEL PACKER
cent setting of pinnacled architectural work, with rich
pendentives, are numerous figures of angels, floating
here and there in the air, singing and playing on
musical instruments, and joyously acclaiming the
solemn spectacle which represents the last of the
glorious mysteries of the Rosary. It is, however,
hardly a perspective composition, but rather the usual
Grouping of single figures. Yet this is done with
ramatic effect, far more masterly in arrangement than
are so many of the later Franconian altarpieces.
For Pacher's art as a painter, and for other details
of his sculptured work, I cannot do better than refer
the reader to the admirable series of articles by
M. Auguste Marguillier in the Gazette des Beaux Arts
(3fenie per. torn xi. 1894). Until recent years almost
unknown, he is entitled to a high place amongst the
masters of the old German schools. To establish this
claim it should almost suffice to name the panel with
the ' Circumcision * of the altarpiece of St. Wolfgang.
Others, of lesser merit, in the same work, were formerly
attributed to Wohlgemut, but now to the master's
brother, Friedrich, and other assistants. In the Pina-
cothek of Munich, at Innsbruck, and at Augsburg,
more, again, may be studied. For sculpture, the
archives of the town of Gries record the contract made
with Pacher in 1471 to carve a retable for the church,
which was ' to be useful, precious and complete/ repre-
senting the Coronation of the B.V.M. and other sub-
jects, with numerous figures and busts of saints. This
one is in similar style, though not so elaborate, to that
at St. Wolfgang. The latter also is of very large
dimensions, measuring about 36 feet in height by 21
in width when the wings are opened. It is a noble
work of a master in painting, in architecture, and in
sculpture.
The altarpiece at Schwabach by Veit Stoss, or at
least executed under his direction in Wohlgemut's
127
WOOD SCULPTURE
workshop, has already been noticed. Dissociating in
each case the question of painting, this work bears so
remarkable a resemblance to that at St. Wolfgang,
especially as regards the central subject, which is an
almost absolute copy, that the merit of the Niirnberg
work must be considerably discounted. Even as a
copy it lacks Pacher's refinement and evidence of
training in the best schools of painting.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum are four panels
of pinewood, which, according to the labels of forty or
fifty years ago, are of Pacher's school. The most, per-
haps, that can be said, is that they are representative of
those southern mountainous districts of the Bavarian
and Austrian Tyrol where the art of wood-carving has
ever found, as it finds to-day at Ober-Ammergau, a
congenial home. They are quaintly pictorial, these four
evangelists, and in somewhat high relief, each seated
at his work, in his study as it were, in his own homely
surroundings, even though these details be contem-
porary with those familiar to the artist. . Here they
sit on their benches, their backs turned partly to the
spectator, their books on little shelves in alcoves above
them, engaged in one way or another, all with every
air of naturalness, which is most charming. St. John
sits almost upright, the face in profile, his arms raised
and elbows leaning on the desk, as he mends his pen,
the legs in easy attitudes seen beneath the bench. But
I see nothing to lead us to attach to these panels the
name of Michael Pacher, or his influence.
Hans Multscher of the Upper Suabian school is a
still earlier master of wood-carving, and again a
painter of great merit. There is a considerable collec-
tion of his wood sculpture in the Lorenzkapelle at
Rottweil, whither it was brought from the Capuchin
church at Wurmlingen in 1851. Unfortunately we
are in the same condition of ignorance concerning his
life as confronts us in the case of so many other
128
HANS MULTSCHER
German wood sculptors of the period. From scanty
information we may glean that, besides his reputation
as a painter, he was famous also for his work in wood
and stone. The great altarpiece of the Frauenkirche
at Sterzing in the Tyrol is by him, and the curious
group in wood of our Lord riding on the ass, at one
time in St. Ulrich's Convent at Augsburg, is connected
with his name. The latter subject is one very fre-
quently found in German fourteenth-century wood-
sculpture. Two illustrations of Multscher' s figure work
are here given ; the Saint Barbara and Saint Margaret
of the church at Sterzing (Plate XVIIL). We have no
positive evidence, it is true, that Multscher was a painter
of pictures. Of his work there is nothing authentic
except in sculpture. In 1433 he made an altar for the
cathedral of Ulm, of which, however, but little now
remains. His figures are in general of a different
character from the stern, austere type of the later
Gothic period. The women are of more mature age,
yet shapely, attractive, and unaffected. Multscher was
certainly a master of his craft, and as we have com-
paratively so little of the Suabian schools of wood
sculpture of the early fifteenth century, the collection
at Rottweil is particularly valuable. But it must
suffice to call strong attention to it, without considering
it in detail.
So also with other remarkable examples by un-
known late Gothic sculptors of the Upper Bavarian
schools. In particular, the very fine statues of Our
Lord, the Blessed Virgin, and of the Twelve Apostles
in the Klosterkirche of Blutenburg. One of these,
that of the Madonna, is perhaps as fine as anything in
wood of the period, which could be brought forward.
It has technically considerable analogy with, and
artistically may stand as high as the Madonna of the
Niirnberg Museum.
The last-named famous figure is perhaps better
i 129
WOOD SCULPTURE
known, and has exacted more admiration, at least of
a popular kind, than any other example of mediaeval
wood-carving. We can give it no name but that
of the Niirnberg Madonna ; we are absolutely in the
dark with regard to its origin. But it must be said
also that not only has speculation been baffled con-
cerning the unknown sculptor whose creation it is,
but there exist also some differences of opinion as to
the measure of art which may be claimed for it. Nor
can we be certain even with regard to the subject :
whether, indeed, it is a figure of the Madonna at all ;
and if we may take it so to be, whether it is the Virgin
of one of the joyful mysteries, of the glorious, or of the
sorrowful ones. For according as it may impress us,
we may have here the Virgin of the Annunciation, or of
the Assumption, or — in the calmness and happy joy of
resignation — of the sorrowing mother at the foot of the
cross. Few, indeed, will hesitate to accept it as one of
the two figures, the other being St. John, which were
so invariable and universal accompaniments to the
rood figures in every country. But so different may
be the effects produced on different minds, that while
some see in the expression of the face a happy, joyful
expectation, the statue has long been known in Ger-
many as the Sckmerzensmutter — the Mater Dolorosa,
Are, then, the eyes ecstatically joyful, with the tender-
ness of love fulfilled, or are they almost overflowing
with suppressed tears, betraying an unspoken lament,
which asks for no consolation ? Is it the Magnificat,
or the theme of the Stabat Mater, that is expressed by
those clasped, uplifted hands which, in their exquisite
modelling, are in themselves masterpieces, and evidences
of a craftsman to whom not one of those with whom
we have dealt, and no unknown sculptor of existing
woodwork of the period can compare ?'] Bode in his
early work on German sculpture, published in 1885,
was of opinion that, although the place of origin of
130
1. THE MADONNA OF NURNBERG. SIXTEENTH CENTURY. SCULPTOR UNKNOWN
GERMAN MUSEUM, NUKNBEKG
2. MADONNA. RHENISH. FIFTEENTH CENTURY
LOUVRK MUSEUM
PAGE 130
THE NURNBERG MADONNA
this figure was said to be Gnadenberg in the Palatinate,
the impress of the Niirnberg school of the sixteenth
century is too strong to be doubtful. We may be
content with this. At the same time the question may
not be altogether unworthy of consideration, Is it even
German? Admirers of every Ntirnberg sculptor of
note have striven to claim, for the particular object of
their study, the credit of this work. Adam Krafft the
stone sculptor, Peter Vischer the bronze founder, the
master of the Blutenburg Madonna, the master of the
Pieta of the Jakobskirche in Niirnberg, Veit Stoss,
of course, and perhaps even Riemenschneider, have
each in turn found their advocates. We cannot now
stay to consider all these claims and the arguments
upon which they are founded. Not infrequently, after
the manner of German minute research, an analogy
will be found, and driven to a conclusion, in a resem-
blance to some isolated detail of drapery or attitude :
for example, in the figure of the lady in the sixth of
Veit Stoss's Commandment plaques. And if, on the
one hand, the enthusiasm of eminent critics has been
aroused, on the other we meet now and then with
terms of disparagement which do not err on the side
of moderation. . Daun (and M. Louis R£au follows
him) quarrels with the proportions of the figure and
with certain mannerisms. Daun holds that the figure
is too lank, the head and face much too small, that
according to the canons of art the normal figure is 7!
heads long, and this Madonna almost 9 ; the shoulders
are' too small, the undeveloped bosom too high, the
hip-joint too high, and so on. We need not go too
deeply into these points, but as to proportions generally :
in the first place, the intended position of the figure
has to be taken into consideration. If it is one of a
rood group, it would probably have been placed at a
considerable height. Vasari distinctly lays down that
when statues are to be in a high position, and there is
WOOD SCULPTURE
not much space below to allow one to go far enough
off to view them at a distance, they must be made one
head, or two, taller. And even without these conditions
innumerable instances in statuary and painting could
be cited, in which the proportions are equally exag-
gerated. The canons of art in this regard are not rigid
and invariable. As Flaubert says, ' the conception of
any work of art carries within it its own rule/ (Chaque
ceuwre a sa po&ique en soi, qu'il faut trouver.) And
Durer, that while the artist must in no ways abate
what is essential to truth, neither must he lay what is-
intolerable upon nature. But here there is surely
nothing intolerable, but an added grace and charm,
and in another place in the great German master's
discourses on proportion we learn that departures
from rule are variations such as the artist specially
intends, so long as one deviates without having the
air of monstrosities or negligence. Almost all the
older writers have discoursed on the proportions of
the human figure. Vitruvius's proportion was eight
heads as the extreme limit for a normal adult. But
many artists make the figure nine heads high, thus :
for throat and neck, •£•; chin to top of forehead,
i ; torso, 3 ; pit of throat to shoulder, i ; arm to wrist,
3 ; instep to sole, •£. Far greater .exaggerations are
frequent in painting. To take but one haphazard, a
reproduction of which lies before me as I write, a St.
Ursula group by Antonio Vivarini in the seminary of
St. Angelo at Brescia. Here the Ursula is no less
than eleven heads high, and the attendant virgins
are almost as disproportionate. And again, in later
times, it would be superfluous to point to the example
of Michael Angelo. All this is of course among the
commonplaces of art, and though perhaps but super-
ficially stated here, may be of interest to those to
whom it is not familiar in relation to the present example.
It was through no. ignorance, nor, on the other hand,
132
THE MADONNA OF NURNBERG. FIFTEENTH CENTURY
NURNBEKG MUSEUM
FROM THE CAST IN THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM,
PAGE 1^2 •
THE NURNBERG MADONNA
from an abuse of licence, that the artist chose to pre-
sent to us as he did this admirable figure. He wished
to produce on our minds a certain emotional effect,
and he instinctively, if at the same time with intention,
followed what his imagination dictated to him* Recon-
struct the Nurnberg Madonna according to the most
restricted canons. 'Would it then have continued to
extort admiration as it has done ? Xo find fault with
it on these grounds is the cheapest of criticisms. A
second objection, upon which Daun is somewhat con-
temptuously strong, is the protuberance of the figure,
accentuated, as it is, by the position in which it stands.
But this is due to a common fashion of the time,
beloved by artists : comparable to the exaggerated
twist which, whether or not derived from the curve of
an ivory tusk, was so much affected in sculpture and
in painting in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
One might as well condemn the Van Eyck in our
National Gallery — the so-called Arnolfini and his
\vife. And again, what if the figure does not declare
plainly its meaning, or bear the same message to all ?
And even if we accept that we are to connect it with a
Schmerzensmutfer — a rood figure — an acquaintance
with German art of the period would show that the
expression of the mother's grief was not always pain-
fully exhibited. We need only go for an illustration
of this to the great master who, we may well imagine,
inspired the author of this figure. We may take, for
instance, Dilrer's series of the Sieben Sckmerzen in the
Dresden gallery. The Nurnberg Madonna will need
but little defence for the readers for -whom these
remarks are written. For my own part, I am free to
confess that I cannot easily rid myself of early impres-
sions produced when I first saw it, removed from
Nurnberg to the exhibition of German art at Munich
in 1876. A word more may be added with regard to
the character of the drapery. This is certainly a
133
WOOD SCULPTURE
departure, and a welcome one, from the prevailing
style of the period. It is a harking back to older and
better traditions. We feel ourselves rather in the
atmosphere of the Italian trecento,;* from which this
sane system, as we shall find it in French art in wood
of the fifteenth century, such as the statue of N.D. des
Ardents in the Cluny Museum was derived ; in many
more, also, in wood, which may be remembered in the
exhibition of French primitives at Paris in 1904, and
we shall find it where we might be inclined to find also
if not the same sculptor, at least one whose art was
similar if not greater, in the Blutenburg Madonna
figure already mentioned.
There is one more group whose connexion with
the Niirnberg Madonna would appear to be unmis-
takable. This is the Pieta of the Jakobskirche
in Nurnberg, which is supposed to be the work
of Veit Stoss. Without accepting this, we must not
omit to notice the judgment of Doctor Bode in his
history of German sculpture (1885 edition), when
he says that the relationship between the Madonna and
the Pieta is so great that they must be the work of one
and the same master. The head of the Virgin is in
both almost the same : the large, fine, expressive eyes,
the full lips, the arrangement of the veil are repeated,
and no question can remain that the statue is a
Madonna and no other saint. But the known
authenticated work of Veit Stoss ought surely to place
beyond doubt the idea that it was in any way likely
that he could either have conceived or executed either
of these two works. I cannot admit the possibility.
It remains to be noted that both the group and the
statuette have been for many years painted a dull olive
green. Whether originally polychromed or not, or
what was the character of the colouring, we have now
no means of knowing. It is to be hoped that the
attempt will never be made to add anything of the
NORTH GERMAN
kind. Reproductions of all sizes of the Madonna
abound, in various materials, for the most part libel-
lous ; but even when from moulds taken direct from
the figure itself they are not entirely successful, neither
is any photograph. The earliest history we have of
the figure, which is probably of limewood, is that it
was about the year 1829 in the Kaiserkapelle of
Nurnberg, whence it was removed in 1876 to the Town
Hall. It is supposed that it came originally from the
church of the Dominican order dispersed in 1807, and
was restored — if one may use the term — and painted
with a uniform coating of green in 1825,
The number of altarpieces, groups, and single
figures in wood throughout Germany is enormous.
The quality no doubt is mixed, and many possess
little merit. There are, however, not a few — and we
should naturally expect to find this to be the case at
such a period of artistic activity — that demand especial
notice. We cannot, of course, in a book which is not
confined to German art in wood, follow them all. A
few brief remarks must suffice for some others.
Among the altarpieces, those to be found in the
more northerly divisions, strongly influenced by the
art of the Netherlands, and themselves transmitting
this influence to the rest of the empire, have been
perforce omitted in favour of the more original and
national art of the southern provinces. Calcar and
Xanten were centres of industry in this kind of work,
and if we were concerned with lists of distinguished
names we should include the altarpieces of Loedewick,
Bogaert, and many others. At Ltibeck, wood-carving
is richly represented by innumerable magnificent ex-
amples of sculpture in wood. Amongst them, and
again at Giistrow and at Danzig, we find the fine
work of the Flemish master Jan Borman of Brussels,
the wings of his altarpieces painted by his com-
patriot Barend van Orley. The Flemish and Dutch
135
WOOD SCULPTURE
influences here and in the Calcar neighbourhood are
strong, both of sculptors and painters. Still further
north, on the shores of the Baltic, we have what is
considered by some to be one of the finest pieces of
woodwork of the kind in Germany. This is the great
altarpiece in carved oak by Hans Briiggemann made
in 1521 for the Klosterkirche at Bordesholm, and now
in the cathedral at Schleswig. As separate composi-
tions, the central group of the Crucifixion and the
fourteen or fifteen lesser panels, crowded with figures
in full relief, are astonishing in their animated arrange-
ment and dramatic force. The pity is that they are
framed in a setting of niggling and commonplace
cut-work tracery and distorted architectural motives
which one can hardly conceive to be from the same
hand. Probably they were not, and with the single
figures — our Lord in Majesty, Adam and Eve, a
Madonna, an angel with a pillar and another with a
cross — are of even later date. At least, they fore-
shadow the rococo which later on invaded the land
and are hardly worth serious consideration. We shall
not stay to consider how far Briiggemann was indebted
to Flemish teaching for his art. Certainly the central
froup of this altarpiece, with its many groups in a
ind of stereoscopic perspective, of which there is a
cast in white plaster in the Kensington Museum,
follows its best traditions, and is admirable in arrange-
ment and in execution. In Suabia altarpieces of
another character abound. As we are forced to
summarize, it will be best to take for this type and
to illustrate the great painted and gilded triptychs
acquired by the South Kensington Museum so long
ago as 1859 (Plates XXL and XXIL). Of the early part
of the sixteenth century, the first consists of a central
panel and two wings. The principal subject is the
Virgin with the Infant seated under a canopy of late
German Gothic style. On one side of her is a figure
136
SUABIAN ALTARPIECES
of St. John, on the other, another, perhaps a local saint,
and on the wings, in low relief, four subjects in the
life of Our Lord and His mother. In the second
example (Plate xxn.), we have in the central compart-
ment a Holy Family group with SS. Anne, Joseph, and
Joachim : on one wing is St. Christopher, on the other
St. Mary Magdalen. The whole is in very high relief,
very thickly coated with gesso, painted and heavily
gilded and burnished* In another the central part
represents, with almost life-sized figures, scenes from
the life of Saint Margaret, all elaborately coloured
and very thickly gilded. Generally speaking, nothing
could be more representative of the religious taste
and feeling of the time: the homeliness and peasant
type of the figures and accessories, the simple inno-
cence and absence of any idea of a great art fitted for
the requirements of princes and nobles, at the same
time giving the best and richest to the church, the
quaint treatment, the details of the martyrdom, the
valuable information to be gained concerning the
costumes and manners and customs of the time — all
this, and more, is of infinite charm and attraction in
such pieces for those who will take the trouble to
examine them.
Of Suabian origin, of mid-fifteenth century, by
masters under Flemish influence, and followers of
Van der Weyden and the Flemish schools of paint-
ing, are such altarpieces as those ascribed to Fried-
rich Herlin in the Jakobskirche at Rothenburg, at
Dunkersbuhl and Bopfingen, to Hans Schiilein or
Schiichlin (1469) at Tiefenbronn, and many magnifi-
cent ones in the cathedral of Ulm and in the neigh-
bouring provinces. Space, however, cannot now be
spared to consider these and such other typical ones,
in the arrangement of the statuary figures and busts
placed amongst the somewhat eccentrically treated late
Gothic architectural work, as we find, for example, in
137
WOOD SCULPTURE
the great altarpiece of the Kilianskirche at Heilbronn,
in the Tauberland. Of a more northerly school, if
indeed we are justified in ascribing the production to
Saxony, it would be difficult to pass without mention
the fine Pietk group in the Marienkirche of Zwickau.
In any case, there is more than a little suggestion of
its connexion with the Wiirzburg and Franconian
schools, as must be said also of the High-altar piece
in the same church, of an earlier date, and from Wohl-
gemut's workshop. The Pieta is, of course, a fragment
of a crucifixion group, the Mother weeping over the
body of the dead Christ, just taken down from the
cross. The Italian inspiration, from Mantegna per-
haps, can hardly be doubtful, altered for German feel-
ing and the taste of the time. We need not be asked
to admire the exaggerated treatment of the drapery, in
which the German artist saw a decorative beauty of
arrangement. As in so many other examples, the
predilection for this style shows clearly that this was
its object rather than any idea of truth to nature.
Even in the drapery of the loincloth of a crucifix
figure, the sculptor, the painter, or the engraver was
not to be restrained from an indulgence in wide-
spreading or floating twists and curls which could have
had no other origin and tended to abuse.
Of single figures it remains to notice an illustration
of the favourite practice of representing holy personages
in the rich costumes and amongst the surroundings of
the period. Examples abound. Two fine groups are
those of SS. Gereon and Catherine of Siena, and SS.
Sosimus and Barbara, in the Niirnberg Museum, Both
retain their original colouring, and are of Franconian
origin, probably from Augsburg. The first-named
pair are here illustrated (Plate XXIIL), and we may
note how the costume of the lady has the sweep in the
folds, suggestive of the school, and the elegance and
decorative value of the large and full sleeves gathered
138
POLYCHROME!) GROUP. SS. GEREON AND CATHERINE. AUGSP.URG \VORK.
S I XT K K N T K C K N TU U Y
Nl KNBKKG MUSEUM
I'ACK I ^3
POLYCHROMED GROUP. ST. ELIZABETH
IK THE Kl.tZABKTHKlRCHK, MARUUKO
1'AGE IXQ
AUGSBURG AND MARBURG
together over the wrists. The expression 'the lady*
is intentionally used, for there is no obvious sugges-
tion in either figure of the saint supposed to be repre-
sented. No doubt the heads are portraits of some
noble personages who held these saints in special
devotion, and admirable, from this point of view, is the
head of the lady. Again we have absolutely no clue
to identify one who must have been a very clever
artist. Not one of the names we have been able to
select to illustrate late fifteenth-century wood-carving
could in any way be suggested. Yet, even in these
figures, Gothic feeling still lingers, though the six-
teenth century is far advanced. To my mind, the
group is full of suggestion with regard to the changes
in progress. A few words must be said for a beautiful
statuette of Saint Elizabeth in the Elizabethkirche at
Marburg. It is a noble figure that many will be
inclined to place on an even higher level than the
better known and more popular Niirnberg Madonna.
The style, the carefully executed details, and the hand-
ling of the drapery, are indicative of a later date than
the latter. The head is bent and covered with a veil
which almost conceals the eyes. She carries in one
hand a model of the cathedral, and a diminutive urchin
crouches beside her. The figure is fully coloured.
The costume, and the quaint hood and wimple, suggest
late fourteenth century, but the small-bosomed figure,
the beautifully modelled hand, and the general style of
the folds of the drapery, place it not earlier than
the second half of the fifteenth. However we may
look at it, it is a charming example of the realistic art
of Germany towards the close of the Gothic period..
139
CHAPTER VIII
SCULPTURE IN BOXWOOD— FRANCESCO DA SANT"
AGATA— CONRAD MEIT— HANS WYDYZ
WE have been engaged, for the most part, in
the preceding chapters with wood sculpture
on a comparatively large scale : with figures
which, in many cases, have claims to be considered on
a par with great sculpture rather than with that to
which the vague term of minor art is frequently
applied. This is notably the case with regard to
Italian and French work of the early and later Renais-
sance, and to some examples by German masters of the
close of the Gothic period. But in the whole range of
our subject there is perhaps no division which offers so
much attraction, and is of so great general interest, as
that which relates to the small figure work, usually
executed in boxwood, and to the still smaller and
amazing tours de force which, in default of a better
term, we must class as microscopic sculpture. Ex-
amples of the latter kind, though not very numerous,
are to be found in almost every great museum or
collection, and without exception it may be said, are
of the highest class, apparently proceeding from one
workshop of the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Tours deforce though they may be, they are not to be
confounded with clever turnery work, which, however
wonderful in its way, and evidence of patience and
dexterity, can make no pretensions for consideration
as art. Skilful work of the latter kind has been
140
BOXWOODS
known in all ages. We are familiar, for instance, with
such things as the enclosing of numbers of tiny spoons
or other reproductions on the most minute scale, in a
nut or cherry stone : with writing the Lord's Prayer in
the compass of a silver penny, and so on : and with
the delightful little Japanese netsukes in ivory and
wood. The microscopic wood-carving, which will pre-
sently be considered, is of another character. It may
be compared with the beautiful ivory book-cover of the
thirteenth century in the British Museum, which con-
tains, within a space of six by four inches, thirty com-
partments carved — with what may truly be characterized
as fine art — with as many subjects in the history of the
Passion of our Lord. It has been illustrated and
described in my Ivories (p. 159) of this series. We
will, however, take first the figures in boxwood, pear-
wood, and soft woods, which in comparison with those
just mentioned are proportionately as much larger as
the life-sized statues are to these themselves. Amongst
them the busts of the so-called Adam and Eve in the
museum at Kensington have, for other reasons, found
an earlier place. These boxwood figures — as in the
case of the wood medallions to which we shall also
presently come — are, speaking generally, more to be
connected with the atelier of the goldsmith, or bronzist,
than with that of the wood sculptor, whose line was
the production of. large figures for altarpieces and the
like. It can hardly be doubted, in fact, that their
genesis was often due to the requirements of the metal-
worker, or founder, as models or patterns : not, of
course, wholly excluding them as treasured objects for
the cabinet of the collector. Our examples will be, for
the most part, German work of the sixteenth century,
but in more than one we shall be forcibly impressed
with the Italian spirit, transmitted through the influ-
ence of such masters as Dtirer, Schaufelein, Vischer,
or Fletner, and, generally, through the continual con-
141
WOOD SCULPTURE
tact with Italy of German artists in their wander-
years and afterwards. It will be unnecessary, also, to
refer again to the continual copying from the engraved
works of these and of other masters of ornament.
Italy itself will furnish us with our finest example :
but it would seem probable that such figures were
produced only in a few places in Venetian districts, if
we may judge from the scarcity of existing specimens.
Boxwoods were probably more worked in Augsburg
than elsewhere in Germany, and, as the great centre
for goldsmith's work, this is no more than we should
expect. But Nurnberg was hardly less prolific. At
Basel, almost on the frontiers of Switzerland, we
shall meet with Hans Wydyz, and it would not be
easy to be precise with regard to the locality of the
work of Conrad Meit Other French and Flemish
work in boxwood of the highest possible excellence
exists in such museums as those of the Louvre and of
Kensington ; but admirable as may be the specimens
which we should select, these are of a character and of
a date later than that at which we are now, with some
exceptions, obliged to stop, and must remain for some
future opportunity. Speaking generally, it may be
said that small sculpture in wood hardly appealed to
the genius of Italian art. They preferred to deal with
larger effects, although, no doubt, in northern Italy, in
Lombardy or in the districts of Verona and Vicenza,
there was a considerable industry for church purposes.
But this consisted of panels with pictorial subjects in
relief, or figures and statuettes for devotional use,
turned out in quantities in trade workshops, copied or
adapted from paintings and sculpture. Still, although
we are carried beyond the limits of date and style, to
which as a general rule we are restricted, it would be
impossible to avoid dealing in this chapter on box-
woods with the figure of Hercules which the Wallace
collection is fortunate enough to possess. It is a chef
142
THE WALLACE HERCULES
of the most pure Renaissance art, one, too, of
which recent research and the identification with a
contemporary record enables us to name, with cer-
tainty, the sculptor. Yet beyond the bare name, we
are still almost completely in the dark regarding the
life-history and achievements of one who must have
been in the first rank among the artists of his time.
Not only so, but the story of the acquisition of the
piece itself is almost equally mysterious. Its Mat
civil and the roll of its former possessors would be of
considerable value could they be discovered. Lost
sight of for three hundred years at least, though
doubtless cherished in many collections, M. Bonnaff<6
was the first to identify it with a figure of Hercules
described by Bernardino Scardeone in his work De
Antiquitate Urbis Patamae, published 1560. It will
suffice to translate the following extract from the Latin
text, p. 374 : ' Every one is astonished at the boxwood
Hercules of the Paduan goldsmith Francesco da Sant'
Agata, which may be seen at the house of the well-
known antiquary Mark Antony Massimo of Padua:
of such exceeding beauty of form and approach to
human truth that certainly neither Polycletus in
bronze nor Phidias in ivory could have rendered it in a
more expressive manner. The high price testifies also
to its extreme merit, since hardly six ounces of box-
wood are estimated at, it is said, a hundred gold crowns.
This Francesco, as may be imagined from the work in
question, was a -very great sculptor: it is surprising
that he should have left nothing more in wood than
this remarkable Hercules, the admiration of every one,
and esteemed at so high a price. He sculptured this
piece, as I have heard, in his leisure moments, in the
year 1520.' We have, then, no more precise know-
ledge of Francesco da Sant' Agata than that he must
have been a very famous sculptor and goldsmith of the
early cinquecento, In 1520 the Paduan school of
H3
WOOD SCULPTURE
marble sculptors and bronzists was everywhere cele-
brated, and no doubt the sculptor of our Hercules was
in the company of such craftsmen as Vellano, Dona-
tello's pupil, and Vellano's still more famous pupil,
Riccio, maker of the famous paschal candlestick of San
Antonio at Padua, of Minio, of Giovanni Mosca, the
medallist, and many others, goldsmiths as well as
sculptors.
The Hercules of the Wallace Collection (Plate xxv.)
is a figure about ten and a half inches high, standing
erect, and in a defiant attitude, brandishing a huge club,
which is swung round to the back of the head in the
manner in which a modern golfer uses his weapon.
The perfect proportions of the figure, the absolute
knowledge of anatomy, and its treatment in accordance
with the highest classical traditions, the life and ex-
pression of movement do not require to be insisted
upon. In addition, there is the perfection of finish in
execution, knowledge of the material, and even the
charm of the beautiful piece of boxwood, as perfect
to-day in colour and in exquisite polish, or patina, as
when it left the sculptor's hands, four hundred years
ago. By general admission, this figure, which from
its comparatively small dimensions may attract but
little general attention, is to be counted amongst the
chefs-tfceu'vre of the Italian Renaissance at that epoch
when Cellini, whose name was afterwards to be so
famous, could only have been beginning his career, and
must have known and studied it. It is a finer figure
than the well-known bronze Hercules of the Ashmo-
lean Museum, which it resembles in pose: the youthful
head is more graceful and attractive than that of the
quite elderly man of the latter piece.
We have little cause to doubt that the signature OPVS
FRANCISCI AVRIFICIS - p - connects the Wallace Hercules
with the Paduan Francesco, and that he was a goldsmith.
It seems to have been discovered in some unknown way
144
STATUETTF. BOXWOOD. BY FRANCESCO DA SANT' AGATA. SIXTEENTH CENTURY
WALLACE COLLECTION
PAGE 144
THE WALLACE HERCULES
by M. Debruge Dumesnil in the first half of the last
century. At his sale it was sold to the elder Carrand
for 300 francs. By Carrand's son it was sold to Comte
Nieuwerkerke, and came with the latter's collection into
the possession of Sir Richard Wallace. It is not a
little interesting to note that this work of art, valued
in its own day at .£200, was in the nineteenth century
esteemed at ^12 only, at any rate acquired for that
amount. And how could Carrand p&re, whose magni-
ficent collection of chefs-cF&wvre was bequeathed by his
natural son to the Bargello at Florence, have parted
with it? The habits of both father and son were
eccentric. The elder Carrand had an admirable taste
and the luck to collect when objects of art of the
Renaissance and moyen dge were more easily to be
acquired than later on. He himself, though he ex-
changed, never sold, and would hardly have parted
with this figure. The son, without being learned in
any way, had the flair of the dealer, and with it the
instincts. It would be instructive to know at what
price Count Nieuwerkerke acquired from him the
Hercules. There can be little doubt that boxwood
figures will become more and more sought after, and
from their extreme rarity — that is, when of the highest
class — Will, as they fully deserve to do, attain prices in
the market not inferior to the ivories of the thirteenth
'century. There is in the Berlin Museum a youthful
nude figure in boxwood, with uplifted arms, which Dr.
Bode also attributes to Francesco da Sant' Agata, and
also a St. Sebastian : both, no doubt, Italian of about
the same date as the Hercules, and masterly in style
and execution.
Boxwood, at the end of the fifteenth and begin-
ning of the sixteenth century, was becoming a
favourite material, and displacing ivory in Flanders
and in Germany : and not only by the imagiers, but
naturally, at such goldsmiths' centres as at Augsburg,
K 145
WOOD SCULPTURE
for use as patterns. But, of course, fine patterns would
be esteemed as cabinet-pieces, and about this time
also the practice of making portrait medallions was
coming in, and followed by the best masters of small
sculpture in wood and in lithographic or honestone.
Before its dispersal in 1890, the Spitzer collection was
especially rich in this class of work. We cannot now
follow the fortunes of that which was dispersed in
various museums and in the great private collections of
Pierpont Morgan and others. Amongst it, and now in
the Louvre, is a charming example of the fashion to
which allusion has already more than once been made
here, of representing holy personages in the gorgeous
costumes of the time. None, of course, would suggest
themselves more readily than the Magdalen in the days
of her impenitence. We have her here in an elegant
ddcolletd costume, of the richest character, looking up-
wards with hands raised in an attitude of prayer, and
holding a rosary. It is early sixteenth-century work.
From the same collection the Louvre has also a fine
Venus, which the eminent former keeper, Molinier,
thought to be by Hans Schwarz — a boxwood sculptor
with whom we shall presently meet as the earliest
and best of the medallion carvers — and a fine bas-
relief, with the favourite subject of a Young Girl
and Death. The latter, which bears his monogram, is
no doubt rightly attributed to him. The Venus is
an example of a prevailing and rapidly increasing
taste of the time amongst German sculptors of small
work of all kinds, which there will be frequent
occasion to note. The Renaissance, and the passion
for naturalism had changed the ideals and the con-
ditionsL of artist life. There was a rage for this kind
of sculpture in Germany, and all were not masters who
followed it. . Doubtless this Venus has its merits and
shows a not unpractised hand, but even if that hand is
of Hans Schwarz himself it is governed by the German
146
BOXWOOD AND PEARWOOD
predilections of the time. She is not beautiful, this
woman of the people with a knotted handkerchief on
the head, hands of exaggerated length, and limbs which
by no means can be associated with classic grace. It
is a naked Gretchen, and, this conceded, we may be
prepared to accord not a little admiration to the talent
of the artist in his reproduction from his model, and
his technical skill. In the boxwood figures, plaquettes,
and bas-reliefs of this time, we meet but rarely the
devotional subjects which up to about fifty years before
were almost the only themes. They preferred to work
from Italian bronzes, to adapt from a Venus of Giovanni
da Bologna perhaps, or to copy from innumerable wood-
cuts or etchings. There are few German statuettes in
boxwood of saints: what there are, exhibit more
pleasure in rich contemporary dresses than devotional
ideas. Religious fervour was dying out, as it became
more paying to work for the luxurious requirements of
princes than for the love of the church. There is
almost a contemptuous making use of holy figures and
legends for their purely decorative value or to satisfy-
some aesthetic feeling which the growth of the Renais-
sance encouraged. The boxwood semi-classical St
Sebastian in the Louvre, for example, is purely pagan :
or again, in that of the Berlin Museum one has to
make diligent search for the marks of- the arrows before
accepting that title instead of perhaps an Adonis or a
Narcissus. Both Dr. Bode, and Fabriczy have published
the beautiful pearwood relief, in the Berlin Museum, of
the head of St John Baptist on a charger upheld by
pnttL The size for one piece of wood — 16 in. x 13^
in. — is remarkable. The group bears the signature
FRANCISCVS - JVLI • VERONEN, possibly, but by neither
of the first-mentioned authorities thought probably,
identical with Francesco da Sant' Agata. Dr. Bode
comments upon the 'great want of proportion in the
figures, a certain lack of freedom in the carriage of the
147
WOOD SCULPTURE
two angels, a stereotyped manner of arranging the hair,
and obviously slight knowledge of the human form'
(Burlington Magazine, May; 1904). That is as may IDC,
but at least the head itself is masterly and painter-like
in conception and expression. It would be easy to
continue the selection of boxwood figures and groups
from various collections which, if not all of the highest
distinction, present points of interest, but without
multiplying our illustrations beyond our limits, mere
lists would become tedious. Amongst such pieces, of
somewhat late date, the figure of a Canon kneeling in
prayer, at one time in the Odiot collection and now
at Kensington, deserves attention. This small box-
wood figure, inscribed ' Breeder Cornelis van der Tyt
A° S 1562,' is evidently a portrait, and of remarkably
careful execution in such details as the texture of the
surplice, of the knitted gloves, and of the robes. We
are still confronted with the same difficulties with
regard to authorship as has been the case with so
much carved woodwork of German, Flemish, and
French origin. But although it is only quite lately
that particular attention has been directed to these
most charming works, recent research has begun to
afford at least some means of classification.
The great influence of the Netherlands on the arts of
other countries, and the high reputation of its sculptors
during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries,
have already several times occupied our attention. It
is, indeed, hardly surprising that this should have
happened when we consider the artistic genius of its
people, and in addition the dynastic conditions and the
changes in government which brought them into close
contact with so many different countries. In 1369
Philip the Bold, son of the King of France, united the
Courts of Burgundy and Flanders by his marriage
with Margaret, heiress of Count Louis u. Under the
princes of the house of Burgundy, John the Fearless,
148
THE REGENT MARGARET
Philip the Good, and Charles the Bold, who married
Margaret of York, sister to Edward iv., the luxury of
their Courts was unsurpassed, calling for the employ-
ment of the best artists from the countries with which
they were connected. In 1477 Flanders, through the
marriage of Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold and
Margaret of York, with Maximilian, falls under the
dominion of Austria, and Burgundy returns to France.
For the moment we need not concern ourselves with
the subjection of the Netherlands to Spain about,
again, another hundred years later (1555).
At the death of Philippe le Beau in 1506 the
government of the Low Countries was confided by
the Emperor Maximilian to Margaret of Austria,
widow of Philibert of Savoy, whom he named Regent
or governess* This princess was even more strongly
inclined to luxurious display and the encouragement
of the arts than her predecessors. Her early years
had been passed at the Court of Savoy, where the
Italian Renaissance had already begun to assert itself,
and she was therefore naturally influenced by the
Italian artists who had there established themselves in
considerable numbers. Yet during her short married
life the attractions of the Flemish style had not been
lost upon her even if they had not been entirely those
of her predilection. At the death of her husband she
conceived the project of erecting a magnificent tomb
both to his beloved memory and as a place where she
herself should rest. For this purpose she sought for
artists amongst the greatest of the time who should be
capable of uniting the principles of Gothic art, as she
knew it, in its French and Flemish forms, with those
of the Italian Renaissance which had already become
strong in its all-conquering course. In the same
way she chose for the superb monument which she
caused to be erected in the church of St. Nicolas
of Tolentino at Brou (Bourg-en-Bresse), Lucas van
149
WOOD SCULPTURE
Berghem as architect, and with him John of Brussels
and Conrad Meit. With the two former we are not
particularly concerned, but the art of Conrad Meit, and
its relationship with our boxwood carvings, is a matter
sufficient to necessitate some slight references at least
to the monument generally and to the Regent Margaret
herself. The tomb is one of the most beautiful
sepulchral monuments in existence. It is a mass of
rich Gothic work with numbers of figures in marble
and alabaster. Beneath the most richly carved canopy
work are the recumbent effigies of Philibert and his
wife, the latter twice repeated — in death and in life—
and of his mother, Margaret of Savoy. Completed in
1526, the Regent herself died and was buried at Brou
in 1530. Conrad Meit — * Conrad Maistre, notre tailleur
d'ymages/ as he is styled in documents in the archives
of Lille — seems to have entered the service of Margaret
of Austria about the year 1514. There is documentary
evidence also that he made for her in 1518 two figures
of Hercules, one of wood and one of bronze, a box-
wood Christ as the Gardener, and two portraits of
herself. Our information, generally, concerning Meit,
is still but scanty. We do not even know with
certainty what portions of the monument at Brou,
erected on French soil, are due to him. But if a
sculptor in Flemish employ, he was nevertheless a true
German. A figure in alabaster of Judith, presently to
be noticed, is signed by him CONRAT • MEIT • VON •
WORMS. As, unfortunately, we have evidences only of
style to guide us for purposes of comparison between
the sculptured figures at Brou and those in alabaster
and boxwood with which we are particularly concerned,
it will be sufficient to confine ourselves to the beautiful
effigy on the lower part of the monument, representing
the Regent lying in death, and one from among the
numerous putti, or cherubs, in alabaster. Doubtless,
besides the architect Lucas van Berghem, Meit had
150
CONRAD MBIT
many assistants, and probably he himself was not the
sculptor of all the beautiful Renaissance putti on this
Gothic tomb. It would carry us too far and must be
left to the reader to follow for himself the comparisons
in detail which are of interest with regard to some
boxwood figures presently to be noticed. He will find
ample material and excellent illustrations — which our
limits prevent us from giving here — both of the tomb
and the figures in the article by Wilhelm Voge in the
Year-Book of the Prussian Art Collections, Tom. xxix.
There is one figure at least, the one most important for
our purpose, which may be accepted as the work of
Meit. It is the putto with the gauntlet. Whether
Meit had ever been in Italy is not known, but un-
questionably his art was strongly influenced therefrom,
and we cannot forget also his friendship with Diirer,
who became intimate with him when he visited the
Low Countries in 1520. Diirer speaks of him as
* mysterious/ and as known in Italy as Corrado
Fiammingo — prince of Flemish sculptors. And, again,
as 'that excellent carver, whose equal I have never
met/ A German of the Palatinate by birth, his figures
of Judith, and those of Adam and Eve which we shall
presently connect with him, are unmistakably German
also. Yet, even if by him, we do not know the date of
their execution, and when we consider his experience
at the Court of Margaret of Austria, his probable long
sojourn at Brou, and in all probability his journeys to
Italy, it is difficult not to be inclined to consider him
as belonging to Flanders.
The learned curator of the Berlin Museum has also
addressed himself particularly to the small sculpture
work of Meit in an article in the Annual before men-
tioned (Tom- xxiL). If I am not mistaken he still
ascribes to him not only the boxwood statuettes of
Adam and Eve in the Gotha Museum, and the similar
ones in the Austrian Imperial collection, but even
WOOD SCULPTURE
the portrait busts in the British Museum (which
the authorities there have not ventured to describe
further than as of a man and woman), the bust in
the Berlin Museum which is almost identical with the
first of these, and the one in the Bavarian National
Museum so nearly alike to the other. In considering
the series of Adam and Eve full-length figures — and
I venture to say that the busts attributed to Riemen-
schneider in the Victoria and Albert Museum are in
the same category — we have to take as our starting-
point an admirable alabaster statuette in the museum
at Munich representing Judith with the head of
Holofernes. In all the numerous German figures of
this kind and period — either statuettes or small bas-
reliefs — we cannot fail to notice the tendency towards,
and fondness for, an exaggerated naturalism. It was
not a striving after the representation of beauty for its
own sake; tnere was no attempt at a realization of
Greek ideals, but inspired, no doubt, by some mistaken
idea of the Renaissance, there was an almost brutal
determination to go straight to nature, omitting nothing,
modifying nothing. In the alabaster statuette the
Judith of the scriptural narrative is absolutely naked,
with an uncompromising realism that finds a parallel
nowhere but in Germany. The youthful figure is
strictly the artist's model as he found her, far indeed
removed from any attempt at idealism. The too long
body is set on thick short legs, with very sloping
shoulders, flabby and squat; the anatomy is some-
what lost in the plump flesh-covering. It is not
the figure of a strong active girl, but rather of one
too well nourished and enervated: chosen perhaps
from some notion of suggestion of the East and the
nearest to that according to the German idea. It
must surely be conceded that in this, as in the other
figures of similar character, the intention of the artist
was the presentation of a vision of beauty as he himself
CONRAD MBIT
conceived it to be. The fault lay not with him, but
in the want of a better model. Vasari, in his Lives
of the Painters, speaking of Diirer, says that he would
have done better work if he had had better nude
models : * for these/ he says, ' must have had ill-formed
figures, as indeed the Germans, for the most part have,
when undressed, although one sees many in those
countries who, when dressed, appear to be very fine
figures.' Yet there certainly had not been for a con-
siderable time any particular avoidance of the nude,
from life, and Meifs contemporary, Lucas Cranach, in
his pictures shows no want of elegance and seductive,
if German, models. Granted, however, the too obtrusive
naturalism, the work is admirable in technique and in
directness of touch : admirable in the rendering of soft
satiny skin, and in suggestion — if no more than sug-
gestion— of the muscular anatomy which is too fully
furnished. The head itself is masterly, and one could
wish to find no fault in the sweetness of expression,
and the refinement in the arrangement and treatment
of the curly hair. Too sweet is the smile : too seductive
to accompany the gruesome horror of the severed head
which the girl sustains with one hand. It would seem,
then, almost to come to this, that it is the technical
handling, the execution of such a work which is borne
in upon one, more than its intrinsic charm. It is no
first effort or production of a natural untaught genius.
Meit must have already known a good deal about
Italy. Yet the figure is German,
In the boxwood statuettes of Adam and Eve, of the
Gotha Museum, we are confronted, though certainly
from another model, with even more realistic fidelity
to nature, with the same masterly rendering of soft
satiny skin and somewhat flabby flesh in both the
male and female figures, the same short bodies and
short thick legs : similar handling of the curly heads,
similar narrow very sloping shoulders, and small,
153
WOOD SCULPTURE
hardly developed, bust of the Eve. Adam's head is
proportionately much too large, and, granting the im-
perfections of the model, the lumbar muscles and folds
of flesh below the waist are very finely expressed in
the back of the figure. The technique of the Adam
and Eve of the Imperial Museum, Vienna, at one time
in the Boehm collection— this boy and girl Adam and
Eve — presents striking similarities with that of Meit's
putto at Brou. Adam, indeed, might be not more than
about twelve years old. His almond-shaped eyes have
a languid expression, and his mouth is half open as if
speaking and gently remonstrating. The hair is differ-
ently treated from the Adam of the Gotha Museum :
it has more of the character of stone work, and of
the alabaster of Brou. We find in the Eve the same
bulging forehead as in the Judith, but the bust is more
fully developed though still of extremely youthful
type. The pair are probably much later than that of
Gotha, in which there is no trace of Italian influence.
We may be very well content with these two_ pairs
of figures of our first parents, in which they are in the
first blush of newly created youth, and it would be
difficult to decide which is the most charming. That is
to say, when we have got over the novelty of the first
impression of the mannerism and of the naive and
apparently untutored art. Meit must have known
Diirer's famous Eve of 1504, and it is difficult to
imagine that the influences by which he would have
been affected during his long connexion with the court
of the Netherlands should not have weaned him from
his too German proclivities, and inclined him — as in
the later days of his friend Diirer — to Italian refine-
ment. The sculptor of these figures may have been
assisted by Diirer's plate, but he evidently worked from
a living model. It can hardly be asserted as con-
clusively proved that they are from the same hand,
however strong the analogies may be, but that they are
154
BOXWOOD BUSTS
nearly related, and that Conrad Meit was no stranger
to them may be accepted as certain. Of them all I
should like to associate with him the Vienna pair and
the busts in the British and Berlin museums*
We have not yet done with the interesting figure of
the Regent of the Netherlands and with her favourite
sculptor. In the collection bequeathed to the nation
by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, known as the
Waddesdon bequest, from which also other treasures
have been selected for this book, are two portrait busts.
They are, according to the catalogue, of walnut, and
represent a young man and a young woman in the cos-
tumes of the early sixteenth century. As examples of
skilful portrait sculpture, neither too realistic nor over
idealized, they would be remarkable in any material,
and are, therefore, of still greater interest in that they
represent in wood, with the others with which they are
connected, the highest excellence of any examples
which could be produced. Whatever ultimate con-
clusions we may come to, there is certainly not a little
to be said in favour of the supposition that in the lady
we have a portrait of Margaret of Austria herself.
There is in the Bavarian National Museum another
bust in many respects identical, which Dr* Bode un-
hesitatingly considers to be of that princess. In the
British Museum example Margaret is in widow's
weeds, so that if the ascription is correct it would not
be difficult to be fairly accurate as to date : that is to
say, not earlier than 1504 or later than 1530* And, if
we may judge the age of the lady, she would be some-
where about forty* The museum catalogue, however,
thinks this to be about twenty to twenty-five. Beauti-
ful, Margaret was not, perhaps, though her sepulchral
figures at Brou are full of sweet expression, but with
little resemblance, it may be said, to these busts. In
the busts there is no flattering, toning-down of the
rather puffy features, and though that of the British
155
WOOD SCULPTURE
Museum is the younger of the two, in both there are
the same broad, thick nose, fleshy cheeks and chin, and
prominent thick lips. The Renaissance Museum in
Berlin possesses, curiously enough, a bust of a young
man which is also as nearly identical with the one in
the London Museum as in the case of the lady. Very
interesting is the man's costume : the fur-bordered robe
and the broad hat half covering the elegant net which
confines the hair. The latter fashion came in in the first
quarter of the sixteenth century, probably not earlier
than 1515, and was common throughout the greater
part of Northern Europe, and even in Italy, during
almost the whole of the century. We shall find it
repeated again and again in the medallion portraits
next to be considered. In itself, it disposes of the
earlier identification of the busts with Charles the Bold
and Margaret, sister of our own King Edward iv.
The medallion on the hat of the London male figure
(that on the Berlin bust is now missing) bears a St.
Margaret killing the dragon, and the motto IE • NE •
scAi : very possibly a medallion of a much earlier date
than the time of the wearer. The costume of the
British Museum lady, with the plain, partly open
chemisette, close-fitting body, and well-executed drapery
of the loose sleeves, and the simple bead necklace, is
much more elegant and attractive than the pleated
guimpe which conceals the neck and bust in the case
of the Munich figure. Judging from the costumes,
then, and the apparent age of Margaret, if it is she, the
date of these busts would be about 1520-1530. But
Philibert died young in 1504. The young man
cannot, therefore, be that prince. What, then, is the
connexion ? And, again — if Dr. Bode is correct in the
case of one at least — what is there to explain two such
similar figures as those of the lady ; both to be ascribed
to Meit, but the one in widow's weeds for a husband
who died in 1504, the other more youthful ? In addi-
'56
BOXWOOD BUSTS
tion to this we are to be precluded by the costume from
dating, what seem to be companion busts, earlier than
1515, when Margaret, however devoted a wife we know
her to have been, would surely have put off her
mourning. But yet again, is it the same personage in
both the busts of a lady? In the one case it will be
noticed that the hair is smooth and straight, in the
other wavy. Can we then be certain that in either
we have a portrait of Margaret of Austria ? Perhaps
not, and it may be remarked that while Dr. Bode
unhesitatingly identifies with her the Munich bust,
he cautiously labels the British Museum one a ' junge
Fran' only. Finally, we have also in the British
Museum a boxwood medallion of the Regent, which
offers practically no resemblance to the busts in question.
A brief allusion must be made to the fine honestone
busts in the Dreyfus collection at Paris, which repre-
sent a younger man and woman in almost identical
costumes with the wooden ones, and are evidently by
the same sculptor. That is, by Meit, if it be he in any
one of the cases. The material here used would seem
still further to complicate the question. A short men-
tion must suffice also for two rather larger busts in
wood, said to be of Philip the Bold and the Elector
Frederick IL in the Munich Museum : probably Augs-
burg work of about 1540. They have been attributed
to Haguenauer, to whose medallion work we shall come
presently.
Every country, in Gothic and early Renaissance
times, had its own favourite, or popular, subjects. In
Germany and the Netherlands none was more so, in
painting and in sculpture, than the story of our first
parents. We are familiar with the Adam and Eve of
the Ghent altarpiece. There are famous examples by
Dtirer and the other great etchers and engravers, and
figures and busts innumerable. Such are the busts at
Kensington, or, again, such bas-reliefs as the small
WOOD SCULPTURE
pearwood panel in the same museum with the Diirer
cipher or signature, and there are many others in metal
or honestone. Even in wood we could not attempt to
follow them all. But it is necessary to take one more
pair. They introduce us to a comparatively new
name, although, unfortunately, it is hardly more than a
name, so scanty, as usual, is our information concern-
ing the bearer In the Basel Museum there is a group
of small boxwood figures — about six inches in height
— of Adam and Eve, which have much in common
with the type with which we have just been occupied.
In this case they form part of a pictorial representation
of the Fall The boxwood figures are set on a land-
scape ground of limewood. Eve smilingly holds out
the apple to Adam, and, in the background, is the tree
with the serpent. In both we have again the same
unrestrained realism in which a by no means perfect
model is relentlessly copied, defects and all. Less
physically plastic, perhaps, than the type from which
Meit worked his Judith, it is the same short and plump
Eve dear to the German taste of the time. Her head
is charming, the soft waving hair restrained by the fillet
encircling it. But the Adam surely is a wretched crea-
ture. He is thin, weak, flat-chested, narrow-shouldered,
with prominent collar-bones, thin, almost muscleless,
limbs with unduly-strained sinews, and the too-large
curly head characteristic of this art of the time. Eve
smiles seductively as she tenders the apple. Adam is
distressed, hesitating, imploring. There is perhaps
more art in these figures, after all, than we might be
inclined to accord to them from a first comparison with
the more attractive pair of the Vienna collection. The
presence of the initials — H on one block of limewood,
W on the other— has led to the opinion of recent
critics that we are to ascribe this group to the sculptor
of the Visit of the Magi (also in wood) in the cathedral
of Freiburg-im-Breisgau. That is to say, to a certain
158
1. GROUP, GERMAN. ST. CHRISTOPHER.
VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM (MASKELL COLLECTION)
STATUETTE; WENCZEL JAMNITZER. BOXWOOD. GERMAN.
SIXTEENTH CENTURY
PAGE '159
HANS WYDYZ
I. O. Wydyz if the inscription with the date 1505 is to
be relied upon. But of this Wydyz we are without
any further information, nor can there be any certainty
that the signature refers to a sculptor. If, however, we
take it to be that of the Master of the Freiburg altar-
piece, we may conjecturally also connect him with a
Martyrdom of St. Sebastian in the Kaiser Friedrich
Museum, Berlin. Some see in this, too, a strong
resemblance to the Basel Adam. But it is entirely
unsafe to rely upon such weak analogies, for which
other circumstances might easily account, and though
the figure of the martyr may fairly be connected with
the style of the sculptor of the altarpiece, it would not
suffice to establish an affinity with the Basel piece.
The Adoration of the Magi is surmounted by figures
of Our Lord, the Virgin and St. John, and if there
should be grounds for ascribing this group and the one
below to the same sculptor, then we should be fairly on
the way towards giving to him also the Adam and
Eve. In the figure of Our Lord blessing and in the
crucifix we have, as typical of the sculptor, the three
folds of flesh below the ribs (although the body is
nearly upright), the contracted waist, the peculiar curve
of the hips and the anatomy of the arms. There are
points in the group of the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian
which may be compared with a fine boxwood figure,
which it will be convenient to take here^.but with ho
idea of suggesting that they are by the same sculptor.
It is the figure at one time in the BonnafFe collection,
supposed to be a portrait-statuette of Wenczel Jamnitzer
the great Niirnberg goldsmith : possibly, even, a self-
portrait. It is plainly a masterly piece, representing an
elderly long-bearded man, draped in a flowing mantle,
more suggestive of the bronzist's or goldsmith's art than
of the qualities of wood sculpture for its own sake. The
Basel St. Sebastian has a certain resemblance to it in the
pose of the left leg, in the general movement, and in the
159
WOOD SCULPTURE
anatomy of the foot. There is, of course, evidence of
considerable acquaintance with Italian art, but it is far
behind the Jamnitzer figure in originality, in nobility of
expression, and in simple elegance of the drapery. The
subject of boxwood and pearwood figures generally
can hardly be left without a passing reference to the
very powerful group, in pearwood, in the Waddesdon
bequest, representing Antaeus supporting the wounded
Hercules. It stands almost a foot in height, and is
said to be Flemish of the late sixteenth century. We
have here another instance of the uncertainties which
still surround us. Whether the origin be of Flanders,
of Niirnberg, or even of Augsburg, might surely be
conjectured, but in each case no artist's name suggests
itself, or country, except Italy, from which we may be
sure it did not proceed.
1 60
CHAPTER IX
GERMAN MEDALLIONS IN WOOD
IN a comprehensive work of this kind, in which
an endeavour is made to give a general
idea of a very extensive subject, it becomes
advisable from time to time to clear the way. Every
division with which we have to deal is of importance,
greater or less as the case may be, and in reality
demands a monograph. The subject of medallions in
wood is also intimately connected with that of the sister
arts of cast and struck medals, and here we come into
especial contact with Italy and her great bronze
sculptors and goldsmiths, and with the plaquettes and
panels in lithographic stone which form such a feature
of German art of the sixteenth century. These, again,
cannot be dissociated from the great names of Dtirer,
Wohlgemut, and so many other wood engravers and
ornamentists. While, therefore, diversions from the
principal subject are inevitable, the limits of this
publication make it imperative that they should be
allusive only. Nor will it be possible to do more than
make a choice of three or four from among the most
distinguished of the German boxwood medallion
sculptors and of their work, and this as examples of
wood sculpture only, without reference to those in
metal. Medals are coinlike pieces cast or struck in
metal, or carved in wood, either as finished memorials,
and works of art in themselves, or for pattern pieces to
be reproduced by casting in metal. Those with which
L 161
WOOD SCULPTURE
we are now concerned bear for the most part portraits
in relief of distinguished personages of the time, or of
less important people, who delighted in having them
executed much in the same way as nowadays the aid
of the photographer is called in. They were portable
likenesses for friendly exchange : expensive, no doubt,
but all classes indulged in them according to their
means. An artist who was in fashion, such as a
Haguenauer for example, would no doubt have counted
amongst his patrons every one distinguished in art, in
letters, or in other ways, as in our own times the por-
trait drawings by Richmond abounded. Thus it has
resulted that, apart from their merits as works of
art, these medallions form a remarkable addition to
our knowledge of the personal appearance of many
celebrated personages, and of the costumes, especially
the headdresses, of the period. Medallic art is due
to the Italian Renaissance, and it will be unnecessary to
trace the steps through which it may have been intro-
duced thence into Germany, where our earliest example
is not before 1520. Vasari attributes it to Vittore
Pisanello, who died in 1451, and the names of
Sperandio, Pastorini, Boldu, and many others of the
last half of the quattrocento, are familiar to those
interested in the subject. Generally speaking, the
difference in the practice between Italy and Germany
is, that in the one case the medallic art was in the
hands of the great painters and sculptors, in the other,
of the wood-modeller for the goldsmith as a special
branch of his profession. Yet in Italy all great artists
passed through an apprenticeship, at least, with the
goldsmith. Brunelleschi, Donatello, Ghiberti, Ghir-
landajo, and many other great names could be men-
tioned. This, because the goldsmith, as Mr. Perkins
has so well put it, was a master par excellence in all
the arts. He was an architect for the columns, niches,
pilasters, pinnacles, and tracery which enriched his
162
MEDALS AND MEDALLIONS
productions, a sculptor for statuettes and bas-reliefs, a
painter for enamels, an engraver for niello. He had
to forge and hammer iron and gold and silver, to cast
in bronze, to model in wax, in wood, or in clay. The
Germans preferred casting to striking for their coins
and medals, but it was not until the sixteenth century
that they got the idea from Italy, and so followed it
that they became, in this art, portraitists of consummate
ability. We need not here inquire into the origin and
development of coinage in Germany, and the connexion
it may have with our wood medallions. In point of
date it has been said that the fine Schauthaler of the
Emperor Maximilian heads the system. In Italy the
earliest medals were all cast by the tire perdue process.
Caradosso and Francesco Francia were the first, it is
thought, to strike medals from engraved dies. If
these admirable works have not always the boldness
and individuality of those modelled direct, they are
specimens of the height of perfection in execution to
which the goldsmith's art could rise. Of Francia's
work in boxwood the Louvre possesses a beautiful
relief: a PietL The German is first of all a wood-
carver, and, as the early sixteenth-century workshops
abounded in sculptors of small figures, panels, and the
like, it was natural that they should imagine the
production of round, instead of rectangular, portrait
reliefs, and make them, first, for their own sakes and
not as patterns for casting. It was not, perhaps, much
earlier than about 1530 that the latter practice became
popular, and that the lithographic or honestone reliefs
were used in the same way. And even then it is hard
to imagine that so many charming works — for example
the Pierpont Morgan Venus in honestone — would not
have been esteemed, and first made, as cabinet-pieces.
The wood medallion continued in favour until Peter
Vischer's influence introduced, from Italy, more
generally, the method of casting. It was a distinctly
163
WOOD SCULPTURE
national art in a country where carving in wood had
acquired such a hold. Many of these beautiful sculp-
tures are so delicately and minutely executed that they
take an independent position even amongst other
wood-carving. They are cameos in wood.
The two great cradles of the rapidly-growing gold-
smith's industry in Germany, destined shortly after to
attain so high a development and such remarkable pro-
sperity, were Ntirnberg and Augsburg. These also, and
in particular Ntirnberg, were the most fruitful districts in
the working of small sculpture in box, pear, and other
fine-grained woods, and in the calcareous stone used
much later on for lithography, which we refer to
generally as honestone. The preference of Niirnberg
was for stone : Augsburg for wood. At the same time
it is not easy — it may be said to be almost impossible
— to distinguish, in every case, the productions of these
two great centres. Still, as a rule, each of the great
masters confined himself to one of these materials. Of
the two, the highest art remains with the wood. It
requires greater artistic qualities in the right under-
standing of its varied qualities, a surer hand, and more
care in execution. The more pliable soft stone is less
varied in its qualities, and almost as amenable as wax
to minutiae, sharpness, and delicacy of detail. For high
artistic merit there is really little comparison possible
between the fine bold individuality of a relief in wood,
when handled in the style of Schwarz, and the cold
mechanical character and too fine finish of even the
best among the honestone workers. Doubtless both
have their charm, and the methods used do not
generally differ greatly except in the case of such a
master as Hans Schwarz. It is necessary also to bear
in mind the double purpose which these productions
were often intended to serve. As has been already
stated, the goldsmith had the choice of wood, stone, or
wax, and, in wood, several kinds besides box and pear.
164
MEDALLIONS
The sculptor of these miniature portraits was required
to be a master in the rendering of human lineaments,
and in the character and peculiarities of his subject, no
less than in great sculpture and in painting. So far as
we know, there was no previous preparation in clay or
wax, but he worked direct on the wood. We shall
find, even, very evident points of distinction between a
wood-carver such as Haguenauer, and such honestone
workers as Fletner or Daucher. Again, in making
general comparisons — and we cannot here go further
than that — it is not only the medallions which have to
be considered. But the honestone was as a rule, some
busts apart, confined to bas-reliefs, and these some-
times of considerable dimensions. Our main interest
for the present lies with the series of portrait medallions
in wood. Of the masters, Hans Schwarz is the earliest
of whose personality we have any definite information,
and he is also the greatest. To him we can assign a
fairly large number of examples. Of other important
medal masters Friedrich Haguenauer is the most
interesting and prolific, and there will be something to
say also of Ludwig Krug, Hans Kels, Hans Daucher,
Peter Fletner, Hans Culmbach, and Jakob Fugger. In
these portrait bas-reliefs it is impossible not to be
struck by the general air of realism, and by the con-
scientious fidelity to the individuality of the subject,
not only in the features, but also with regard to the
particular characteristics and carriage of the person
portrayed. The observation of nature is exact. There
is, in the best and boldest specimens, a scrupulous
avoidance of flattery, and of retouching away natural
defects. The portly burgher, for example, loses none
of his corpulence: on the contrary it is emphasized,
sometimes even to the extent of exciting our amusement
or ridicule, and, without any malice, the puffy cheeks
and usual characteristics of the ban vivant are nothing
extenuated. Facility of execution, a firm, rapid, and
165
WOOD SCULPTURE
decisive touch are evident : sometimes fatally so, even
with the best masters. It is true also that there was
a tendency towards excessive exactness and sharpness
of detail which are not in accord with the highest
expression of art.
For fine bold workmanship, and in breadth of
touch, Hans Schwarz is distinguished to a degree
which places him in a category distinct from that
occupied by his later rival Haguenauer. We do
not look for mechanical precision in art as evidence of
perfection of execution. On the subject of medallic art
Quatrem£re de Quincy, in his Essays on Art, has some
apposite remarks which are worth quoting. He says,
if it may be permitted to summarize them : — * The art
of the composition of mgdaittes consists in the reduction
to their lowest terms of every subject, every action,
every figure, so that each may be not merely an
insignificant part of the whole, but the whole clearly
indicated by that which is only a part. From this
arises the necessity of distinguishing in each subject
the feeling, which is the chief or central point In this
way a system of studied abbreviation is accomplished,
which reduces each composition to its most simple
expression, so far as its moral or physical signification
is concerned: not only so, but which gives to the
persons or figures represented the value of that ideal
language of which they are the visible signs/ It is
true that he is speaking not so much of portrait
medallions as of those with historical compositions,
and that his remarks are addressed in particular to the
work of the eighteenth century medallist, Duvivier.
But the language is no less applicable to our present
subject As great talent is required in the life-like
rendering of individual expression in these bas-reliefs
as in the art of the portrait painter. The sculptor
seizes the point of view best suited to his purpose, and
he would seem to be more successful with the profile
166 r
MEDALS AND MEDALLIONS
portraits than with the full-face, or even the three-
quarter face. In profiles the form of the head and
face, the line of the nose, the contours of the chin, the
eyebrow, and the eye itself, are rendered with more
lifelike and impressive fidelity. Illusion is produced
by the play of light and shade and the different degrees
of relief. Almost without exception the known portrait
medals of Haguenauer are in profile ; where they are
full face, for example in his Friedrich van Embrich,
his Johann von Aich, or even his Mercator — of
whom he made two others, much finer — they are
strikingly inferior. It would seem that the back
of the head is of the highest importance in the
expression of character in bas-reliefs. The full-face
must have strongly marked points, as — to quote
another amongst the few we have of Haguenauer — that
of Jakob von Strassburg, to give equal facility of
rendering.
Many boxwood medallions are known, often
not inferior in merit to any of Italy in bronze of
the same period. Large numbers are in public
museums and private collections, and, of course, in
such storehouses of German art as the museums of
Berlin, Dresden, Gotha, Vienna, or Brunswick.
But, unfortunately, in the majority of cases, though
we may be able to identify the portraits them-
selves from inscriptions or other indications, the
sculptors' _names are unknown, or, at the best,
uncertain. The greater number may be attributed to
the Augsburg workshops. Italian medals were much
more frequently signed. As regards Germany, it is
not only the boxwoods which are unsigned. The
anonymity applies also to the greater number of cast or
die-sunk medals which are scattered in rich profusion
throughout most collections of importance. In point
of fact, when we are concerned with any attempt to
classify, we are reduced to the method adopted by
167
WOOD SCULPTURE
Ennan of assigning examples to artists using certain
monograms, when, even, we have this slight informa-
tion to go upon. And amongst these anonymous
masters are to be found specimens of no less high
character and interest than the work with which a
Schwarz or a Haguenauer may with more or less
certainty be identified. For these and other reasons
already given, our attention must now be confined to
a few of the most distinguished whose work is known,
viz. Hans Schwarz, Hans Kels, Haguenauer, Krug,
Dachauer, and, incidentally, Peter Flottner, or Fletner.
Fletner was, no doubt, one of the most distinguished
pioneers of the German Renaissance, but his wood-
carving is not of the class, for chronological and other
reasons, to which the present review of German wood-
carving is especially directed. Certain medallions and
bas-reliefs are attributed to him, in some cases for no
better reason than as, in the same way, anything fine
about which there is no authentic information is
associated with Diirer or Michael Angelo. Fletner
was a versatile genius, and his influence on the art
of his time was very great. In a general way he was
a decorator : designing chimney-pieces, ceilings and so
forth, and doubtless employing many hands. There
are in the Louvre a number of reliefs in wood with
floral swags, putti playing, and the like, derived from
the Italian after the manner which, later, became such
favourite subjects with Flemish and German sculptors
in ivory. Born probably about 1480, working at
Augsburg, and for the most part at Ntirnberg,
he died in 1546. Although we know little of
his life, his drawings and architectural designs exist
in considerable numbers. They cover a most extensive
range, and include designs for goldsmith's work, altars,
altarpieces, organ fronts, choir stalls, furniture, panels,
plaquettes, and reliefs of all kinds and interior decora-
tion. A large number were exhibited at the Burlington
168 S
FLETNER— SCHWARZ— HAGUENAUER
Fine Arts Club Exhibition of early German art in 1905.
No doubt he was in business relations with the work-
shops of the great metal workers such as the Vischers.
He belongs essentially to the later Renaissance. Of his
existing work there are the choir stalls of the cathedral
at Berne, in which his own portrait, winged as a cherub,
though a bearded one, appears on a misericord. In the
Waddesdon bequest is a fine oval medallion, with the
subject of Lot and his daughters, said to be by Fletner :
probably a copy of an engraving. The Victoria and
Albert Museum possesses a boxwood medallion of
Joachim Rehle (Plate XXVIIL), and a large number, in
silver and other metals, exists, of which the honestone
or wood models can also, in some cases, be identified.
Our two foremost figures in the art of medal-
carving in wood are Hans Schwarz and Friedrich
Haguenauer. Of both of these little has been
known until recently, when the researches of Professor
Georg Habich have resulted in some light being
thrown upon their work, especially with regard to
Haguenauer, through the discovery of a MS. by him,
and other documents in the archives of Augsburg. The
initiation of the practice of medallions in wood may
justly be claimed for Hans Schwarz. Born at Augsburg
about 1492, he was apprenticed to a wood-carver of the
same family name, Stephen Schwarz, and worked
subsequently at Ntirnberg. Artist life in that city
seems to have been particularly tumultuous, for like his
contemporary, Veit Stoss, he had to leave on account
of a brawl, and we have no trace of him after 1527, the
date of his last known medal. This little we can gather
from Neudorffer, the indefatigable chronicler of Ntirn-
berg art, who calls him the best conferfetter of his
time. And with regard to his family we know also
that his father, Ulrich, also an artist, is represented
in Holbein's votive picture of 1508. In his medal
work, as in his figures and reliefs, Hans Schwarz was
169
WOOD SCULPTURE
consistently Gothic. Intimately connected, no doubt,
with Diirer — who seems to have been associate or
mentor of every craftsman of his time — the traditions
of Gothic art in which he was brought up, were never,
so far as we can positively judge, abandoned for
any flirtations with the Italian spirit then making its
insidious way. The contrary of this may be asserted,
and for proof we might go to the few pieces — for
example in the Louvre — which, though unsigned, are
accepted as by him. Of his first known work — a relief
with the Entombment in an architectural framing, at
one time in the Felix collection (figured in the catalogue
of 1886 No. 938) — Habich says that the influence of
Donatello is evident, and that Schwarz soon left his
Gothic sympathies behind. But beyond the framing,
which is purely Renaissance, it is hard to see what there
is of Donatello in the subject itself. What is remark-
able in his medals and reliefs is his absolutely personal
style : strong, dashing, impressionistic, and in striking
contrast with the somewhat laboured precision and
minute finish of his contemporary Haguenauer, whose
medal work begins, as far as our present information
goes, almost in the very year when that of Schwarz
leaves off. Schwarz was the Rodin of his time, and, as
the precursor of German medal work, his style, owing
little to German traditions and sympathies, is still less
connected with, or indebted to, Italian modellers and
casters. His drawing is bold : a few lines, a few firm
strokes ; rude, perhaps, and uncompromising. He
was no flatterer, and in no way inclined to spare the
strongly marked lines of the face, Whether instinctively
acquired, or by a course of training, his knowledge of
the anatomy of the head must have been great. We
see this in his treatment of the formation of the skull
beneath the skin, and in the hanging cheeks of the
aged. His figures, however, are mostly hatted, and
his style is certainly more forcible when they are not
170
SCHWARZ AND HAGUENAUER
Unfortunately, the broad- flapped hat of the period was
so much in favour both for men and women that not
one in twenty of the medals of the time is without it
Of the remainder, most wear the curious close-fitting
cap with a flap at the back, which was afterwards
affected by the reformed clergy. The number of
Schwarz's medal works in Ntirnberg is considerable.
He was the Nurnberg medaller as Haguenauer was
afterwards of Augsburg. For the rest, in contra-
distinction to Haguenauer his full faces are especially
distinguished. Expressed with a few touches, they
are lifelike — speaking likenesses, indeed, to use the
familiar expression. One cannot help remarking the
clever use of rasp and point in the treatment of the
drapery ; and the whole arrangement, the placing of
the figure in the circle and the value given to the
headdress, is more pictorial than the dry neat finish
and photographic detail of Haguenauer.
We are again indebted to the researches of Dr.
Habich for additions to the very little information
hitherto available concerning the next of the most
important among the German medal makers. The
earliest documentary accounts from which we may
gather particulars of the life of Haguenauer are in
the archives of the city of Augsburg, in which he
first makes an official appearance about the year
1531. He appears to have been the son of a famous
Strassburg sculptor, Nikolaus Haguenauer, the maker
of a great carved altarpiece, now -no longer existing,
in the cathedral. As was the case with so many of his
contemporary artists who worked in corporations, his
talents were versatile, and he was at once painter,
sculptor, goldsmith, and stained-glass maker. Early
in his career Reformation troubles caused him to leave
Strassburg (he was on the Catholic side), between the
years 1520-1530, but we have not much certain infor-
mation concerning the countries visited by him. They
171
WOOD SCULPTURE
were, indeed, rapidly changing times, which affected in
many ways the sentiment and fortunes of artists. The
old exclusively religious requirements in the art of
Gothic times had, under the influence of the classical
Renaissance, turned the demands upon them into other
channels, and with the Reformation came a marked
decrease in emotional piety. The glorification of holy
personages in heavenly spheres was discouraged, and
gave place to that of living individuals. Princes, rich
merchants, town councillors, goldsmiths, and others
who were in the foremost ranks of literature and art,
with their wives and families, were no longer only to
be commemorated by their monuments after death, but
caused a new demand for their portraits in life, which
had hitherto been almost unknown. It is at least
remarkable that out of the immense number of medals
of the first half of the sixteenth century — and not all of
them are portraits — a religious subject is rare indeed.
There exist, happily, a large number of Haguenauer's
cast medals, and not a few fine examples of his medal-
lions, or patterns, in wood in various museums, and
our British Museum possesses some rare specimens.
The museums at Berlin, Munich, Augsburg, Ntirnberg,
Karlsruhe, Donaueschingen, Frankfurt, Stuttgart,
Cologne, and some others in Germany, are naturally
the strongest. Haguenauer's art, as we find it exem-
plified in these, differs considerably from that of his
immediate predecessor, by which he seems to have
been in no way influenced. He was, indeed, as
independent and, to a certain extent, as original in one
direction as Schwarz was in another. The work of
Schwarz is direct, bold, decisive, impressionistic, and
decorative. As an aid to identification many will find
that in his portraits, whether drawings or medal work,
there is a peculiar treatment of the eye which is
remarkably characteristic : a piercing, penetrating ex-
pression, rather directed upwards. Very striking also
172
HANS SCHWARZ
is the treatment of the hair in his men models : a
method which has no analogies in the work of his later
rivals, Haguenauer or Kels. Or we may take, again,
the modelling of the underlip and the angle of the chin,
These and other distinctive features are recognizable
at a glance, though without numerous illustrations it
would not be easy to describe them in so many words.
Indeed, it would be risky, within our limitations of
space, to pursue further such questions of detail which,
if but superficially stated, are liable to misconstruction.
The reader may be advised, if he has not access to
originals, to compare in the numerous plates of the
articles by Habich to which reference has been made,
such examples as the medals of Hans Tummel, of
Ursula Imhoff, Anna Pfinzing, Margaret Tetzel, or
Friedrich Pelham — to name no more of many which
might be cited. Shortly, may we not say that a
Pfinzing — and there are several — is recognizable, at a
glance, as by Schwarz? For his full-face portraits
what a finely modelled, convincing likeness is that of
the young man in a broad-leafed slouched hat, em-
broidered shirt and furred robe of which there is a
boxwood in the Munich Museum! Of his wood
medallions we have, so far as I know, no authenticated
examples in English museums or private collections.
At South Kensington there is a fine cast in bronze of
Urban Labenwolf dated 1518.
If we may compare shortly the genius of the two
men, we shall find that although the work of the one
begins, or comes into fashion, in the very year in
which we lose sight of the other, Haguenauer was
— as has already been stated — no follower of or in any
way influenced by the earlier master. He struck out
an entirely independent line for himself. He is of the
Renaissance, while Schwarz remains Gothic. Exact-
ness, finished precision, and dry, mechanical technique
are nowhere strong points with Schwarz. In his work
173
WOOD SCULPTURE
it is the satisfying results of the living- image, the
powerful use of strong lights and shades, forming a
general decorative effect, which strike us. We hardly
notice the manual dexterity, nor do we feel called upon
to inquire into the methods which were used. In the
other case we admire the technical tours de force, the
academical correctness, the dexterity of the turner
added to the talent of a finished draughtsman. Not
that Schwarz was devoid of talent for figure-drawing.
However he may have acquired it, more than one
delightful example exists in the collections of prints
and drawings of the Berlin, Bamberg, and Leipzig
museums. The art of Haguenauer is less personal, accu-
rate almost to the extent of niggling, descending to
particulars of detail, and, as it were, sharply focused.
It is generally of a lower relief, and would have
appealed more to the sympathies of our own medal
workers of the sixties of last century than the broader
style which the critical art judgment of the present day
would demand. At the same time, it is evident that,
from the demands made upon him, Haguenauer was
led into the error of over-production. What concerns
us principally is, of course, his work in wood, and,
amongst the comparatively small number of wood
medallions to which we are able to refer, there are
some which may place him on an equal level with
Schwarz. What a strong portrait, for example, is that
of the unknown individual, with close-cropped and
partly-shaven head, and in buttoned coat with a hood
to it, in the museum at Brunswick! Lesser character-
istics by which we may be guided in assigning work to
Haguenauer are the style of the lettering, the small
ornaments used by him, the position of the subject in
the field, and the decoration of the reverse. The inscrip-
tions, it may be said, were often added by gluing letters
to the model or impressing them on the mould for
casting, sometimes evidently by means of printer's type.
174
HAGUENAUER
Haguenauer's medal work was not exclusively
confined to portraits, and his reverses were some-
times classical: for example, the f Liberalitas ' in
the Berlin Coin-room, and the 'Girl extracting a
Thorn from her Foot' But this side of his art is not
remarkable. Besides medallions, the Kann collection
possessed a fine rectangular relief portrait of Bishop
Philip v, Freising, than which nothing is more charac-
teristic of his style in wood ; and, indeed, at its very
best. It is a half-length, almost facing, the head
turned in profile. The bishop wears the Reformers'
cap, a kind of rochet, and over this a fur-bordered
gown, the folds of which fall almost as in the draperies
of the earlier Gothic schools. The clean-shaven,
strongly-marked face, with the loose hanging folds of
cheek and chin, has nothing of flattery about it. We
do not know whether, in his later years, he followed
their creed, but about 1543, when at Cologne and
Bonn, Haguenauer made a number of portrait medals
of prominent reformers. Amongst them, in the Berlin
Coin-room, is the boxwood pattern for the medal of
Melanchthon, then about the age of forty-six. It is on a
plain field, without any rim, rather hard in treatment,
but the face full of character, and of the type of the
Caspar Hedio in the Brunswick Museum. The British
Museum possesses a cast of this, and also, amongst
others, of Mercator, Lauchberger, and Thomas v.
Rheineck, and in the Waddesdon bequest are a bust of
Hans Hanschel dated 1544, and another of Goedart
van den Wier dated 1542, both attributed to Hague-
nauer. Without a sufficient number of illustrations it
would be uninteresting to follow the series in detail,
and a comprehensive list of works, according to artists,
is not within the plan of this book. Two more original
wood models, however, may be noticed. In the
Munich Museum are the two large medallions of
Sebastian Ligsalcz and his wife Ursula. Ursula wears
WOOD SCULPTURE
what seems to be a looped man's hat of the period, and
beneath it her straightly-combed hair falls in^ a long
plait down her back. The man's headdress is more
like a woman's cap, but it is really the netted fashion
of the period, as an under headdress, and to be found
on other portraits. The lady is neither beautiful nor
youthful for the age of twenty-eight given to her by
the inscription on the edge- The medal has the addi-
tional interest of an inscription in ink, stating that I
(Haguenauer) at the age of 44 ' dis in holz abguntervet-
ten und schneiden,' so that, if an autograph, we may
deduce that Haguenauer was born in 1473. All Hague-
nauer's medallions are not in boxwood. They are some-
times, for example, of walnut or pearwood : ^ and the
very large one in the Munich collection of Cri-stof von
Nellen is of maple. This is a very fine portrait of a
great noble of the time, distinguished by his huge
bulk and powerful physique, about whom there are
many interesting anecdotes. He is represented as
extremely portly. The Victoria and Albert Museum
is not strong in wood medallions. The best is a small
one of Ulrich Ehinger, dated 1533, which might well
be by Haguenauer. It would be impossible, within our
limits, to follow in detail other wood sculptors who
produced medal work. Amongst the best known is
Hans Kels of Kaufbeuren, who worked in Augsburg.
By him there is in the Morgan collection, on loan at
South Kensington, the original model of a medallion
of Barbara Reihing of Kaufbeuren. She wears a
close-fitting dress, with a chain over it, and her hair in
a net A bronze cast of this is in the collection of Mn
Max Rosenheim. Hans Daucher, or Daher, to whom
some of the wood medallions may be attributed, was
one of Augsburg's most distinguished sculptors. But
his reliefs in honestone are his chief distinction. This
was an Augsburg speciality, not being known in Nurn-
berg before 1508. With regard to these, and to the
176
MEDALS AND MEDALLIONS
sculptor generally, it must suffice to refer to the two
reliefs in the Morgan collection at South Kensington,
relating to the Triumph of Charles v. (1522), and to
mention that Mr. Peartree (Burlington Magazine,
1905) proposes to name Daucher as the author of the
famous Venus panel in the same collection, which bears
Durer's cipher. Mr. Peartree doesn't mention them,
but he may have had in his mind also Daucher's
honestone reliefs in the Bavarian National Museum, in
which the nude women, holding shields with the arms
of the Dukes of Brunswick, are certainly in no small
degree reminiscent, both in design and execution, of
the Morgan plaque. Daucher is credited with having
made the stalls formerly in the Fugger chapel in the
church of St Anne at Niirnberg, and a fine group of
the * Deposition ' in another Fugger chapel at Augs-
burg. On the other hand there is, according to Mr.
Peartree, direct evidence that he worked also for the
Fuggers a ' Resurrection ' in Schloss Wellenburg.
But this seems to be a pitifully poor piece of rococo
character which would hardly redound to his credit.
To such other medallionists, distinguished also in
other departments of wood-carving, as Ludwig Krug,
Hans Culmbach, Hans Reinhardt, Valentin Maler, or
Jakob Fugger, it is possible to devote only a passing
attention. Ludwig Krug of Niirnberg, of whose short
life little is known, and whose medal work must also
be classed, for the most part, as uncertain in attribu-
tion, worked probably between the years 1522-1532.
He was a goldsmith, and NeudorfFer praises his die-
sinking. Two examples of his silver medals are in the
Victoria and Albert Museum. Of Hans Kels there is
a group in boxwood in the Niirnberg Museum, with
country people dancing, but it is rather trivial, and
suggestive of the advancing rococo style. On the
other hand, the rich and elaborately carved draught-
board and draughtmen by him in the Ambras collec-
M 177
WOOD SCULPTURE
tion, Vienna, is a very fine example of woodwork,
generally, of this class. It is of many woods com-
ined: oak, box, lignum vitae, satinwood, and pear.
The board itself is a most elaborate work, with portrait
medallions and borders of foliage and fruit, birds,
and animals, and scenes of the chase. Some of the
smaller medallions, with figrires and scenes, have
almost the character of the microscopic work to which
the next chapter will be devoted. The draughtsmen
are carved with a great variety of scriptural scenes and
with classical and other profane subjects. The whole
work is minutely described and figured in photogravure
in the Vienna Jakrbuch der kunsthistorischen Samm-
lungen, iiL 53 (1885). Hans Dollinger was another
contemporary Augsburg wood-carver to whom, however,
few medallions in wood can be assigned. His reputa-
tion lies chiefly in his stone reliefs. The Rothschild
bequest has eight interesting examples of boxwood
medallions, amongst them one of John of Leyden,
leader of the Anabaptists, and another of Maria, wife
of Maximilian IL, by Antonio Abondi of Milan, who
worked for that emperor and for Rudolph IL In the
same collection also is a fine panel in pearwood,
measuring 6f x 5f inches, with a three-quarter length
figure of a young man in doublet, flat cap, and ex-
travagantly slashed and beribboned doublet and hose.
The question of Albert Diirer's influence on the
wood-carving of his time, and the use made by sculp-
tors of his designs, has already received attention. In
connexion with medal work it is again opened, and
we have to consider not only whether this great artist
himself carved in wood, but also whether some impor-
tant medals and other reliefs, with or without his well-
known signature, are the actual work of his hand. It
is a momentous subject, upon which critics have greatly
exercised themselves. It is more than likely, indeed
we may be certain, that in accordance with the general
178 *
DURER
practice of art in his day, Diirer would have been
exercised in the use of the chisel. He worked as a
goldsmith in his father's workshop, and, well versed in
the art in all its branches, left it to become a painter.
But nothing can be deduced from his diary and corre-
spondence and other writings as authority on the matter,
still less connecting him with any particular works.
There is no existing piece that we can say with certainty
is by him. Amongst the medals and other reliefs
which have especial reference to our subject the follow-
ing are the most important. A medal with a head of
Lucretia, bearing the cipher dated 1508, and at one
time erroneously called Agnes Diirer : a portrait medal
of his master, Wohlgemut, dated 1511, the style of
which, it is held, suggests an original in wax : a medal
with the portrait of a man, dated 1519, and thought to
be the father of the artist : and the famous honestone
panel, with the full-length figure of a woman, nude,
with her back turned, bearing the cipher and date
1509, which, having passed through the Birkenstock,
Brentano, Felix, Stein, and Carmichael collections, is
now in that of Mr. Pierpont Morgan, and lent by him
to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Erman, one
of the earliest authorities on medallic art, and many
numismatic critics, have been, and still are, of opinion
that these examples should be accepted, but the question
is so involved in that which may only connect them
with him as the designer, and the signature added with
or without his concurrence or consent, that it is im-
possible to arrive at any definite conclusion. It has
been already shown how very much the wood sculptors
with whom we have been occupied availed themselves
of his designs and of those of the other great engravers
and etchers : and certainly his work, both portraits and
heraldic compositions, was very much in use by con-
temporary and later goldsmiths. Interchange between
artists was of the commonest occurrence. Marc Antonio
179
WOOD SCULPTURE
Raimondi is a well-known case in point, and his etched
pieces which are absolute copies from Raphael's and
other great artists* paintings and sketches.
Hans Daucher was undoubtedly one of the most
prominent of the German wood workers of the first half
of the sixteenth century, and nothing would be more
interesting than, if we could, to name him authorita-
tively as the author also of the Pierpont Morgan hone-
stone Venus. This, Mr. S. Montagu Peartree, in a long
and able article in the Burlington Magazine for October
1905, has accomplished, to his own satisfaction at least.
Without implying that Mr. Peartree's conclusions are
irresistible, it may be said that his researches are of con-
siderable interest, with much information concerning
Daucher and his work, to which our space will not
allow us to allude. Some, perhaps, may think his
arguments are hardly convincing and sometimes far-
fetched. For example, his comparison of the Morgan
plaque with the figures on the left hand of the Limbo
panel by Daucher in the Fugger chapel in the church
of St. Ulrich at Augsburg, and the Eve herself in the
same composition. He compares the features and the
folds of the drapery and finds them ' identical ' in design
and execution. As a matter of fact the identity would
seem scarcely nearer than if one were to say that an
elbow is more like another elbow than a nose. After
all, however, these things are felt, and cannot be argued.
Daucher and others were perhaps associated with
Diirer in Venice or, may be, in Nurnberg, and allowed
by him to translate his drawings into relief, and even
permitted to add the cipher as the mark of the designer
to whom the chief credit was due, the sculptor effacing
himself. This, indeed, would appear to have been the
practice with the wood engraver later on : and in
etching, to this day, the important part played by
the actual printer of the plate is frequently ignored.
Various other questions relating to the subject sug-
180
MEDALLIONS
test themselves, without bringing us any Hearer to a
efinite conclusion.
There has been no attempt, within the limits of a
short chapter, to give here either a history of medallions
in wood, or even a comprehensive account of the work
of Schwarz, of Haguenauer, or of Kels. Nor, even if
space permitted, should I make any pretensions to
knowledge as a specialist on the subject generally.
For such a qualification the study is necessary not
only of models in carved wood, but of cast and struck
medals in various metals and by various processes,
especially in Italy, where the practice of working them
in wood was unusual, if used at all. Our national
collections are, unfortunately, not rich in examples of
this particularly German art. But, indeed, they are
nowhere commonly to be found. In the Louvre are
about fourteen wood medallions, formerly in the
Sauvageot collection, which were described and figured
so long ago as 1834 by Lenormant, in his Trgsor de
Numismatique. One of them is, however, a draughts-
man. The Victoria and Albert Museum acquired, in
1867, two fine examples, one of which is ascribed to
Hans Schwarz, and the other is very much in his
manner, and it has possessed also for some time four
or five others which are not without interest. Amongst
the latter, a portrait of Wolfgang Poemer bears the
(added) Diirer cipher. Quite recently the museum has
acquired, through the munificence of Mr. Salting,
eleven medallions, several of which came from the
famous Spitzer collection, which was comparatively
rich in examples attributed to Haguenauer. The
Pierpont Morgan collection, at present in the same
museum, has, with three others, the Barbara Reihin-
gin, by Hans Kels, dated 1538, and the Augustin
Honoldt. Several of the above are here illustrated
(Plate xxviu.). None have yet been ascribed, with
certainty, to a particular master, and it would be out
181
WOOD SCULPTURE
of place, in such a brief notice as the present one, to
do more than draw the reader's attention to them.
Finally, for our London museums, the Wallace collec-
tion has four medallions, including one with the
portrait of the Infante Ferdinand of Spain, all of
which have this monogram |(Tl branded on the
backs. Of course it is not to be assumed to be that
of the sculptor, Mr. Max Rosenheim's collection,
and his reputation as an expert on the subject, are
well known. In wood he has a fine example of Kels,
with the portraits of Matthew and Anna Raiser on the
obverse and reverse respectively. Two or three others
from the collection of Sir Julius Wernher were shown
at the Exhibition of the Burlington Fine Arts Club,
to the catalogue of which the reader is referred.
It will be seen that these specimens of German art
are of considerable historical and artistic interest.
They differ, also, from medallic art in metal, in that
each is in itself the original, and unique, while casts
from it may be multiplied. They are artists' proofs ;
sometimes, also, proofs before all letters, and they are
of extreme rarity. Few, indeed, are aware of their
high market value. It may be, therefore, interesting
to note that the cost to Mr. Salting of the little bit of
boxwood, about the diameter of a two-shilling piece,
and hardly half the thickness, which forms the Lux
Meringer medallion (Plate xxvm.) was no less than
182
CHAPTER X
MICROSCOPIC OR MINIATURE WOOD SCULPTURE
THERE is a series of undeniable works of art in
wood to which the term microscopic sculpture
is applicable in default of a better term under
which to classify them. The boxwood carvings de-
scribed in the preceding chapter would seem to form
an intermediate class between these very minutely
executed works and those which range from statuettes
to life-size and even colossal dimensions. If, indeed,
the use of a microscope is not absolutely necessary, it
is at least an aid which is of considerable use for their
appreciation, and they can well stand the test. These
curious wood-carvings, on a minute scale, are all of the
same character, and though nothing is certain, it is
difficult not to imagine that the known examples — of
which nearly every collection of importance contains a
more or less elaborate specimen — must all be from the
same workshop, perhaps even by the same hand. The
beautiful examples bequeathed to the nation by Baron
F. de Rothschild are so representative of the class that
it would be quite sufficient to confine our attention
entirely to them. More than one is unequalled else-
where, and the collection is easy to inspect among the
other beautiful surroundings in the Waddesdon room
of the museum. Easy to inspect, but not to handle,
these precious objects, for so fragile is their nature
owing to the extreme tenuity to which some of the
carved details have been reduced that it is doubtful if
183
WOOD SCULPTURE
permission will ever again be given to do so for the
purpose of photographing them. We are indebted,
therefore, for our illustrations to the photographs
previously taken for the official publications. Generally
speaking, these minute carvings are very clever reduc-
tions of monumental Gothic work, or of the altarpieces
which were themselves in the architectural style of the
period. Even if original to some extent in arrange-
ment, they follow, in common with work of greater
proportions, the system, so usual in the minor arts,
of copying from paintings, engravings, and sculpture
generally, Chefs-d'czuvre of technical skill in execution,
they are in no way inferior to the altarpieces which
have been described in previous chapters. No doubt
the fashion was suggested in the first place by some
simple ornamentation of the ordinary rosary bead. This
became extended, and the beads were increased in size
from an inch to three or more in diameter to admit
even of figure work and scenes in perspective. These
beads — paternosters, grains-de-chapelet, or, as the
Germans term them, prayer-nuts — are no doubt the
earliest in date. A further extension of the idea are
the miniature altarpieces, tabernacles, memento mart,
and other pious bibelots, of which there are charming
examples in the Waddesdon and Wallace collections.
In course of time the simply-carved beads were made
to open on a hinge as a diptych, sometimes even as a
polyptych, and were deeply and elaborately carved,
within and without, with figures and episodes in sacred
history in full relief. Often, again, these precious and
fragile carvings were further enclosed in outer cases of
delicate open work, and the two hemispheres divided
by a thin metal plate engraved and enamelled : after
the fashion, in fact, of a pomander box. Naturally,
also, in response to the spirit of the time, the idea lent
itself to all sorts of quaint conceits. We have the
favourite memento mori subject repeated in numerous
184
MICROSCOPIC CARVINGS
grotesque and terrifying and even repulsive ways.
There are strings of grinning skulls and half-decayed
heads, or the living head of fashionable beauty in con-
junction with the representation of what it was fated to
become after death. There was a similar fashion, of
course, in the mediaeval ivories. Or again, as in this
collection, a tiny coffin, with a ridged lid, which opens
and discloses a skeleton with its attendant horrors, or
a representation of the Last Judgment and the tortures
of hell A natural extension of the idea from the
beads, in diptych or polyptych form, would have been
the application to other devotional and even secular
objects, always on the same minute scale, and always
with the same exhibition of dexterity of handiwork and
extreme carefulness of execution, with at the same time
evidence of a master in art on a level with the most
distinguished sculptors of his time. Doubtless this
mixture of talent of such a varied kind must have had
a considerable reputation, though all trace of the artist,
or artists, has been lost.
There is so much similarity in the technical execu-
tion of the fairly numerous examples of this micro-
scopic sculpture which still exist, that it would seem
evident that they must have been the work of one
particular sculptor, or have proceeded from one particu-
lar workshop. It is hardly likely that the accomplish-
ment could have been a common one, which astounds
us by the apparent impracticability of detaching, with-
out breaking, such details as the hairlike spears
of the soldiers in the crucifixion scenes, the multi-
tude of figures carved in the round and standing
detached from the background in perspective land-
scapes (as in the larger retables), and the undercutting
in almost inaccessible portions of the subject, always
with the same precision and perfection of finish. Of
course, as in the case of the well-known Chinese
puzzle-balls, the problem would lose its charm if
185
WOOD SCULPTURE
joins of any kind were permitted. There are two
most important pieces in the Waddesdon collection :
a miniature altarpiece on a richly-carved base orna-
mented with figures, and a very curious and elaborately
contrived structure, mounted on a stand, which the
official catalogue describes as a ' tabernacle/ We need
not quarrel with this term, for it would be extremely
difficult to find an alternative one "which should be
entirely satisfactory. As an example of this description
of work, in which ingenuity and dexterity of handicraft
are joined with design from the hand of a master, it is
probably unique. It would not be easy to describe, in a
few words, the subjects depicted on the central panel and
wings of the retable, or the complicated construction
and variety of figure work of the second piece. The
illustrations here given must speak for themselves
(Plates xxix. and xxx,). In the centre of the altarpiece
is the Crucifixion with the three crosses raised on high,
the thieves on each side struggling with their bonds :
beneath are a multitude of tiny figures, the holy women,
priests, soldiers on foot and on horseback, and the
people generally, in the manner of the Flemish and
German primitives, and the altarpieces copied and
adapted from their pictures. Analogies will, of course,
present themselves to those who are familiar with these
subjects, but the question, however attractive, is not
one for which space can here be found. With a magni-
fying glass, and even without it, one can distinguish
the expression of the features admirably portrayed,
the minutiae of the costumes, the harness and accoutre-
ments of the horses, the hairlike ropes binding the
thieves, and the equally hairlike spears of the soldiers,
completely detached, without any support from the
background. One only of the latter shows any injury,
being slightly bent, after four hundred years and more
of existence. The wings of the triptych are, as usual,
In low relief Beneath, and enclosed with doors, is a
186
MINIATURE ALTARPIECE. FLEMISH OR NORTH GERMAN, SIXTEENTH CKXTURY
P.RITISH M,U^EUM (\VAIH>K^DnN R'«»M, ROTIIiCHIT.n nE<>UEST)
MICROSCOPIC CARVINGS
second, and smaller, triptych with scenes of the
Passion carved on the inner side in low relief. Beneath
this again, on the semi-circular arcade of steps, is the
representation of the Last Supper — the figures of Our
Lord and the apostles, in full relief, seated behind
the table — and on the base, on the steps of the arcade,
and on pillars are cherub figures and lions holding
shields in Renaissance style. The whole rests on
recumbent lions. There are traces of gilding, and the
date 1511 is engraved on a small oval panel. The so-
called tabernacle is remarkable, in the first place, for
its complicated construction. The knop, if it may be
so termed, opens and discloses a kind of rosary bead
divided into two parts on a hinge, one part having
shutters to close as in a triptych. The interiors of the
hemispheres are still more minutely carved than in the
previous example, with the Crucifixion and other
Passion scenes. There is again the same dexterity
displayed in the detachment of the spears and other
accessories, and all the figures are in full relief. On
the top of the bulbous pinnacle which surmounts the
whole is a pelican in her piety. If this is removed,
the petals forming the bulb itself fall down and, as they
fall, cause a charming Madonna statuette to rise out of
the bulb beneath. Each petal is itself carved on the
inner side with scenes in the life of Christ and of His
Mother. Even with this, the ingenuity of the fitting
together or displacements of the various parts is not
exhausted, and hardly a hair's-breadth of the whole is
without its carved subject or ornament
No Japanese netsuke or medicine-box maker has
bestowed more elaborate care on the fitting together,
or on the decoration of the exposed or unexposed
portions. There are several inscriptions and texts,
badges, and coats-of-arms. These, and the character
of the lettering, are of importance in the considera-
tion of the question of the origin of these boxwood
187
WOOD SCULPTURE
miniature works. Of the coats-of-arms there are
two of Charles the Fifth as Emperor and King, and
under the foot of the altarpiece is the inscription
+ DOMINICVS • ACAVALLA - ME • FECIT • A& 1562. A
more careful examination of the objects themselves
and of their cases would be necessary than it is pos-
sible for any but their curators to make to warrant
any definite opinions which might be deduced. Both
the pieces just described have their charming original
cases of leather incised with floral scrolls, and set and
bordered with gold filigree work. All this points
to the high value attached to these objects, and the
extreme care with which they were kept. It may be
that the base of the altarpiece is of later date than
the upper portion, and that the case was made for it
at the time of the addition or reconstruction. We may
remember that Charles v. was born at Ghent in 1500,
was King of Spain and Emperor of Germany in
1516. He would then have been only eleven years of
age at the time the dated part was made. He retired
into a monastery in 1555, and died in 1558.
To what country are we to ascribe the origin of these
curious pieces ? The usual opinion, and the official one
held at the museum, is that they, and the other known
pieces of the same character, are Flemish. Though this
is highly probable, something might however be said for
a North German origin : in the Westphalian provinces,
for example, where, in the sixteenth century, a flourish-
ing school of retable makers existed, under strong
Flemish influence. The architectural work, if it may
so be called, has nothing peculiar to Flanders, and the
branch-work curtain, bordering and hanging from the
ogee-shaped canopy of the larger altarpiece, is more in
German than in Flemish taste. Many Westphalian
and even Lower Rhenish altarpieces might be cited in
which analogies would be found. For example, the
beautiful early sixteenth-century retable, No. 1336, in
1 88
MICROSCOPIC CARVINGS
the Bavarian National Museum. In this piece also the
pinnacles and the somewhat eccentric open-work orna-
ment of the canopies of the three divisions (whether or
no they belong to the original structure) are also
strongly suggestive of the flamboyant open-work of the
second piece here illustrated. The British Museum
miniature altarpiece has been chosen for illustration
instead of another extremely fine one in the Wallace
collection, because it is perhaps more representative,
of extreme delicacy and tenuity in the details and
accessories. But it is not to be supposed that the
Wallace shrine is less remarkable, and it is apparently
from the same atelier. The fantastic architectural
work forms a further argument in favour of West-
phalian, or, at least, North German origin, rather than
Flemish.
There is another curious example of microscopic
boxwood carving in the Waddesdon collection. It is
attached to a gold signet-ring of Italian origin,
and according to the museum authorities is pro-
bably English work of so early a date as 1340. The
style is, of course, of an entirely different character
from any of the other pieces, but we need not on
that account necessarily assume that it is much
earlier in date. Without affirming also that any of
these elaborate works, so German or Flemish in charac-
ter, could by any possibility be English, it may be that
the idea of ornamenting rosary beads in this manner
originated in our country. The writer of a short paper
in the Catholic periodical The Month (July 1909)
lately brought under notice a curious early sixteenth-
century tract by Clement Armstrong, called * A treatise
concerning the staple and commodities of this Realme/
The following passage occurs in it : * If any English-
man wold stody to devise and invent any new artificial
thynges, Londoners, incontynent, is ever redy to destroy
it. About a fourteen years past was but a sleyt fantasy
189
WOOD SCULPTURE
devised in Kent of makyng the first bedys with the
pater noster holowe like muske balls, made of boxe
which in a short time susteynyd a 30 or 40 men,
that made theym and sold them to Londoners whereby
all parties which occupied them gate lyvyng oon with
another: unto a haburdasher that carried a sample
into Flaunders and ther causid a gret abundance of
theym to be made by young prenters used in all such
actyvite ther and brought them into England to the
destruction of the seid artificers here/ The tract
referred to was first printed and edited by Dr.
Pauli in a contribution to the Goitingen Abhand-
lungen for 1878, vol. xxiii., entitled ' Drei Volkwirth-
schaftliche Denkschriften aus der Zeit Heinrichs
vm. von England/ In this we find all that is known
on the subject. The letters appear to have been
addressed to Crumwell about the year 1532, the writer
calling him * my maister/ They are a lengthy and
elaborately worded complaint concerning the goods and
work going out of the country, of foreigners brought to
and employed in England, and how to reform the
Realm and set people to work. The expression ' young
prenters * probably means apprentices.
Before leaving this subject some notice must be
taken of two pieces, in a somewhat similar style of
minute carving, which involve, in addition, questions
of historical interest. They are the letters flb and F
in boxwood or cedar, in the museum of the Louvre.
The M is carved with legends of the life and
martyrdom of Saint Margaret. The F has on the
inside, when opened, religious scenes, such as the
crucifixion, mixed with others from the romances of the
period, and on the outer sides foliage work and orna-
ment of a Renaissance character. The whole is sugges-
tive of a Franco-Flemish origin, and if these curious
objects had any practical use, this would probably have
been a method of telling the beads : for thirty round
190
MICROSCOPIC CARVINGS
¥-ains, or beads, surmount the edges of the letter M.
his carved letter seems first to have been noticed in
an account given in a communication by M. Bon to the
proceedings of the Soci^U des Inscriptions et des Belles-
Lettres in 1753. The writer considered it to be of the
time of St Louis, and further conjectured that it be-
longed to Margaret of Provence, who accompanied him
in his first crusade. The F is mentioned by the Abbd
Barth6lemy in his letters in LIRsprit des Journaux^
1779. It is, of course, late fifteenth or early sixteenth
century work, and has given occasion for considerable
ingenuity in attempting to identify the personages
whose initials the letters represent. But the question
has not yet been solved. The letter F was bought by
M. Debruge Dumenil in 1837 for 120 francs. It after-
wards went into the Hope collection for 600 francs,
and at the dispersal of the latter was acquired by M.
Sauvageot for 2500 francs. Labarte thought that it
referred to Francois ier and the M to his sister Mar-
guerite d'Angoul£me. But a more likely theory is
that the letters are the initials of the names of Phili-
bert of Savoy and the Regent Margaret, in whom we
have already been much interested. In an inventory
of 1523, which has been published in the Revue Arck4o-
logique for 1850 there is mention of *une belle lettre
M de bois bien taillee a une petite chafne de bois pen-
dant aux lettres du nom de J6sus/ We may remark
the mixture of Italian and Flemish styles and that the
subjects in the medallions of the M are still Gothic
though the ornamental details are of the Renaissance.
191
CHAPTER XI
WOOD SCULPTURE IN SPAIN— SOME SPANISH
RETABLES AND THEIR MAKERS
UP to a period as recent as the sixties of last cen-
tury very little attention had been paid to the
arts of Spain, with the exception of the great
schools of painting. We knew Velasquez, Cano, or
Murillo, but little else. Of archaeological research and
books on art there was little or nothing in Spanish, or
of the sculptural art of Spain in other languages, and
very little had been efficiently illustrated. Indeed, to
the present day, the Diccionario de Artist as Espanoles,
published at the end of the eighteenth century, is
almost the only work of authentic reference in the
language of the country. But about 1860 the acqui-
sitions made in the country itself by Sir J. C. Robin-
son, for the South Kensington Museum, were the
means of opening the eyes of a great many hitherto
ignorant of the treasures of Spanish sculpture, metal
work and textiles, and the interest shown in them
culminated in the special exhibition at that museum in
1 88 1. Previously, Sir Richard Ford, in his Handbook
for Spain, had been the only one amongst us to
attempt anything like a systematic account of the arts
of the Peninsula. From whatever sources the styles of
the great retablos or altarpieces, in stone or wood, or
thzsillerias with their elaborately carved stalls, may have
been borrowed or inspired, the fact remains that these
works have, in common with the treasures of wrought-
192
SPANISH ART
iron, of the goldsmith's and jeweller's art, or of
embroideries, a character of their own which the least
experienced critic recognizes at once as Spanish. The
neglect and destruction of works of art in Spain that
prevailed about the period of the purchases by our
museums conduced considerably to the ease of acquire-
ment. It is said that woodwork, and even textiles,
were burnt in quantities for the sake of the bullion in
the gilding which they contained. The authorities of
cathedrals and monasteries were ignorant of their art
interest and value, and the opportunities of collectors
for a rich harvest were exceedingly great. Neverthe-
less, so far as wood sculpture is concerned, it cannot be
said that our museum at Kensington especially pro-
fited, and for a general survey of the art we shall have
to go to other museums and to the cathedrals and
monasteries of the country itself for what still remains
of choir-work, of altarpieces, or of detached figures.
On account of the special character of Spanish art in
wood, arising from the national system of polychrome
which we call e$tofado> and from other peculiar methods
of enrichment, our observations may extend somewhat
beyond the period to which, in general, it has been
found necessary to restrict the scope of this book. The
system of painting, so important with relation to wood-
carving, was not, however, a Spanish invention, nor even
peculiar to Spain. In this they were merely, according
to their custom, imitating methods employed in other
countries. In the earlier times, and almost to the end
of the Gothic period, the flesh was painted with a single
tint and varnished ; later on the draperies were decor-
ated by colouring over gold, and tracing upon this
surface ' estofado J fine designs. Among the influences
which have contributed to form the art of the Peninsula,
we need touch but lightly on the most ancient ; that is
to say, on the Oriental, or Arab. The effect of the
Moorish invasion, and the prolonged occupation of the
N 193
WOOD SCULPTURE
country, must have been very great, and they have left
their traces even in comparatively late Gothic times.
Indeed, the earliest choir stalls — those of the convent
of Gradafes in the kingdom of Leon, or at least the
remnants of them which still exist in the Archaeological
Museum at Madrid — are Arab in style, though of the
thirteenth century. Later still, in the beginning of the
fifteenth, the carver of the stalls of the cathedral of
Huesca bore a Moslem name, Mahomet de Boja. For
the most frequent examples of Moorish art we should,
of course, go to the decorative interior wood-work, the
artesonado ceilings, the doors and other ornamental
details of palaces and municipal buildings, for example
in the Alcazar of Seville. Naturally this is without
figures. Briefly, the influence of Oriental art in Spain
may be summed up under three systems. The first, in
which, from the eighth to the twelfth century, Byzantine
methods prevailed, as they existed in the churches of
the East : the second, the highly decorated style of the
Alhambra and Granada, covering the period between
the thirteenth and the fifteenth century : and the third
the Mudejar, or mixture of Christian and Moorish,
the Hispano-Moresque, due to Christian work carried
on by Moorish artists, or the copying and adapting by
the latter of Moorish styles and designs. During
those times, and indeed for long after the expulsion
of the Moors, the wood most generally used was of the
pine family: pitch pine, cypress, and, in particular,
cedar. The vast forests surrounding the city of
Cuen$a supplied unlimited quantities of the Cuen$a
wood so frequently mentioned in inventories as an
accepted tenn for pine, or deal as we should say. As
late as the middle of the sixteenth century we find in
the contracts for a retable by the entallador Diego de
Velasco, and the imagineros who assisted him, that the
figures should be in good wood of Cuen<ja, and in
cypress. The Moorish artists kept rigidly to their own
194
SPANISH ART
style without attempting to imitate that of the
Christians with whom they worked. The earlier
Gothic work, therefore, is a combination of both, the
Moslem confining himself to arabesques, geometrical
curves, tracery in inlaid work, pendentives and stylistic
foliage of an absolutely Oriental character. This, how-
ever, he could accommodate without difficulty to the
Gothic style. A fine example, probably the finest of
the period in existence, is the painted and gilt reliquary
now in the Accademia de la Historia, Madrid. It
is a triptych with Gothic arches in relief, dated 1390.
The style persisted, and may be followed in several
cabinets in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The
whole question, however, belongs more properly to
furniture, and is beyond our present purpose.
From the point of view with which we are particularly
concerned, wood sculpture in Spain begins to attain a
prominent position about the beginning of the thirteenth
century, a little later than its early development in
France. The sluggish Spanish temperament of the time,
the political conditions in the country itself and foreign
relations, combined to hinder its rapid progress and the
formation of a distinctly national art. As late as the
middle of the century the Moors were founding, as their
last refuge from the increasing Christian power, their
kingdom of Granada, nor were they defeated there till
a century later. But there still remain examples of
Christian art of the thirteenth century of such interest
as the almost life-sized statues in painted wood in the
Archaeological Museum at Madrid. They are from
Oviedo: a seated Madonna figure and a St. John
holding a book in the left hand, the head resting on
the right arm. The French influence is, of course,
evident In the fourteenth century there was an
invasion of Italian, French, and Flemish artists, who
made many monuments in stone for the cathedrals of
Barcelona, Tarragona, and Leon. The French were
195
WOOD SCULPTURE
indeed the chief, if not the sole foreign artists, to whom
is due the sculpture of the cathedrals and churches in
the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Leon is
absolutely French, and Pampeluna, built by Charles m.
of Navarre, is not only French, but in the older parts
as fine as anything of the period that France itself
could show. Even if a certain number of Tuscan
sculptors in marble were imported in the fourteenth
century, the dominant note throughout the century is
still French, and so continues in the schools of Aragon
and Castile, and in the provinces bordering on France,
although no French names are to be found in the
contracts. In the early part of the fifteenth century
we learn from Vasari that Dello Belli, the miniature
painter, entered into the service of Juan n., King of
Aragon. Delli was famous for the decoration of
chests, adorned with paintings in the stucco or gesso
style, and one of the first to introduce this Italian
manner into Spain. He appears to have abandoned
his own country from pique at some supposed affront,
and to have devoted his life to Spain, where he died at
the age of forty-seven. His influence upon the poly-
chromatic decoration of sculpture must not be left out of
account. Then comes the direct influence of Burgundy,
of Flanders, and of Germany. The great sculptors of
these countries are called in, and combine to establish
their master-works in the form of the retables and
choir-work, so mixed in character from the various
elements from which it is derived, and yet, however
strikingly Flemish, Italian, or even Moorish in detail,
so overwhelmingly Spanish as a completed structure.
Nowhere else are the proportions of a retable on so
huge a scale, nowhere else are the materials, whether
of alabaster, of painted and gilded wood, of gold and
silver and precious stones, of such magnificence, as it
stretches from side to side the whole width of the
choir, and from floor to roof. All, it may be said, of
196
SPANISH ART
the hundreds from amongst which it will be possible
to select but one or two of the most important to
illustrate sculpture in wood, belong to the end of the
fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century.
About the beginning of the fifteenth century the
Italians who had hitherto been employed were replaced
by Flemish artists. We find in various archives, such
as those of the cathedral of Toledo, the names of
maltre Rogel, of Juan, and Bernardino of Brussels, of
the four brothers Guas, Vas, or Egas, also of Brussels,
and numerous 'Aleman' and others, which show that
the Fleming was called in to teach and also to establish
himself in the country. Thus, the dominating elements
in the formation of the sculptural art in wood to be
applied to so great an extent in the erection of the
peculiar Spanish altarpieces, and in the richly-carved
ranges of choir stalls, were, in turn, Burgundian or
French, Flemish or German, Italian and again French.
From these varied sources was evolved what is called
the plateresque style : estilo plateresco, a term applied
because it has a certain resemblance to the elaborate
and delicate ornamentation of silver plate. The ex-
pression is somewhat vague, and to some extent mis-
leading, for it by no means indicates anything novel or
original, or any settled departure which could properly
be termed a style, but simply a general impression of
over-richness of decoration ; a varied combination of
pointed Gothic and Italian Renaissance, to which are
often added Mudejar forms. When the whole of
Europe revelled a century or two later in the grotesque
ornamentation, which at its worst is called rococo or
baroqtte, it is not surprising that the Spanish tempera-
ment should have carried this to the most extreme lengths
in that style to which they themselves have given the
name of estilo monstruoso. It degenerated indeed into
a riotous extravagance which, under the architect
Churriguera, and connected with his name by the
197
WOOD SCULPTURE
unflattering epithet churrigueresque, has not been
surpassed or equalled elsewhere. Unfortunately, it is
to Spain a subject of national pride. The political
conditions prevailing at the end of the fifteenth century
naturally contributed to increase the relationships
between the courts of Flanders and Spain, from the
fact that Philippe le Beau had married the daughter
of the Spanish monarch, and early in the century
names of artists suggestive of German origin also
appear in municipal and cathedral archives. We have,
for example, a Juan de Aleman, and the mixture
or adaptation to Spanish forms of foreign names is
perhaps in many cases almost our sole resource in
drawing conclusions, so scanty are the materials for
any definite history. A striking example of this is the
case of the foremost name on our roll of sculptors, that
of Philippe Vigarny, or Felipe de Borgona, the story
of whose origin and life is so uncertain. The Flemish
influence and workmanship on numberless retables and
stall work of choirs is marked. We find it in the
great retable of Burgos, where, on the other hand, the
splendid range of choir work of the cathedral is no less
distinctively Italian of the Renaissance. These Flemish
and German influences continued until early in the
sixteenth century, when Spain, with the rest of Europe,
succumbed completely to the all-conquering influence
of the Italian Renaissance. The infiltration of Renais-
sance principles and methods was not, however, of
sudden application. As in other countries, it made its
way first of all tentatively and with hesitation, as it
were : certain details were applied to the still dominant
Gothic style before being adopted exclusively. Besides
the stream of immigrant foreign artists, the Spaniards
themselves went to Italy to place themselves under the
great masters of Rome and Florence, and the Spanish
sovereigns brought to their courts and encouraged in
every way the settlement in the country of the best
198
SPANISH ART
available talent. An example of the transition or
mixed style is such a work as the two large doors
which were at one time in the Spitzer collection.
Although so late as 1541, they are evidence of the slow
abandonment of, and still lingering attachment to, the
Gothic style, and, indeed, they show distinctly an
unsettled purpose in the mind of the artist, uncertain
on which side to cast the balance of his affections, and
therefore, except in the execution, which is admirable,
they cannot be said to be entirely successful Of a
fine, close-grained, and polished walnut, they are an
illogical mixture of Gothic motives and panels of the
linen pattern with ill-adapted classical Renaissance
types. About these times we have more definite
information than we have concerning Spanish art of
the early mediaeval period, where we are left to conjec-
ture and to scanty documentary information. It must
be allowed that however great may have been the
influence of France and Flanders in the last days of
pure Gothic, the Imported architects and sculptors were,
to a not inconsiderable extent, limited to designing and
superintendence, and were ably seconded by the colla-
boration and admirable execution of the native artists.
Whatever may have been the amount of influence
applied, especially that resulting from the Italian
training of Berruguete, it will be found in retablos and
sillerias, as well as in single figures, to be tempered by
the national characteristics of Spanish feeling. If?
indeed, the stalls of Leon, for example, may be borrowed
or imitated from Germany and Flanders, or those of
Burgos from such work as the choir of Perugia, they,
or at least innumerable other adaptations, are so over-
laid with unmistakable Spanish feeling, so characterized
by a profusion of ornament to the extent of congestion,
by a lack of restraint in the use of colour and gilding,
and by the love of imitative realism which „ besets
Spanish art in general, that, while flattered by the
199
WOOD SCULPTURE
compliment, the Flemish or Italian artist would hardly
be contented to acknowledge them.
It is then a heterogeneous mixture which we must
expect to find in the retables and choir work of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the fifteenth it
would seem to be the Flemish accent which is pre-
dominant : yet not exclusively so, but rather, in general,
of Northern Europe, for both Germany and France
have largely to do with it; and in the sixteenth it
becomes a medley of Italian styles, introduced by
French artists who have already gone through the
process of adapting them to their own national system ;
by Flemish sculptors domiciled in the country, and
become naturalized, and by Spaniards themselves, who,
without abandoning entirely the national style, so
surcharge it with the new Italian methods that it is
almost transformed. In point of fact, whether the
designs and execution were entirely due to the foreigner
or divided between him and the native artist, bred in
foreign schools, the Spaniard called the tune, as he
was entitled to do. The plan of the present work does
not permit of a systematic and inclusive description of
the many extraordinary retablos in the Peninsula,
although a considerable number are in carved and
painted wood — in pine, limewood, cedar, or larch, for
the most part — wood being more abundant and more
easily worked than stone or alabaster. The general
remarks in a previous chapter on the origin and
development of retables and altarpieces need not be
repeated. It is true, perhaps, that although the earlier
forms of moderate dimensions became extended into
reredoses as they are now, unfortunately, generally
called, of considerable dimensions, nowhere more than
in Spain, at the period with which we are mainly con-
cerned, did they attain such vast proportions together
with such exaggerated profuseness of imagery and
decoration. Whether of stone or marble or alabaster,
200
SPANISH ART
of silver or other metal as some are, or of wood as the
most usual material, in every case they employed a
multitude of artists of nearly every profession. Archi-
tects and sculptors, goldsmiths and silversmiths,
painters, enamellers, imagineros, entalladores, estofa-
dores, and the innumerable other specialists into which
the profession of sculpture-painting was divided,
plaster casters and stucco workers were required, and
even the stuff-maker was called in to add to the
imitative realism in which the Spanish artist delighted.
Amongst the host of names of artists, native and
foreign, which may be gathered from the pages of Cean
Bermudez, it must suffice to confine ourselves to
Vigarny, Berruguete, Damian Forment, Pedro da Mena,
and Martinez Montaiiez, with some incidental references
to the most distinguished of their co-workers : leaving
also the few remarks which it is necessary to make
upon Spanish choir stall work to the chapter devoted
to that subject. The great epoch of sculpture in Spain,
identified, perhaps, more particularly with sculpture in
wood than with any other branch of the art, is of the
time of Felipe di Borgofia and of Alonso Berruguete,
covering in general terms the first half of the sixteenth
century.
Damian Forment was born at Valencia in the
latter half of the fifteenth century, probably nearly
about the same time as Berruguete, than whom he
died somewhat earlier, the date of Forment' s death
being 1533. Martinez Montafiez is without the limits
to which it has been found advisable to restrict in
general the scope of this book, but as it is to him that
is due a revival of mediaeval methods of painted
sculpture in a peculiarly Spanish style, a brief reference
to his work will not be entirely out of place. Philippe
Vigarny, or, as the Spaniards call him, Felipe de
Borgofia, is the most prominent amongst all the
sculptors who contributed to form the Spanish Renais-
20 1
WOOD SCULPTURE
sance. Of his early history little is known, but it is
generally agreed that he was a Burgundian, a native of
Langres, where he was born some time in the last
quarter of the fifteenth century. We have our first
authentic information concerning his work in an
existing document dated 1505, in the archives of
Burgos, in which he describes himself as imaginario,
residing at Burgos, and contracts for the sum of 130,000
maravedis to make with his own hands the figures for
the choir of Palencia in fine, smooth, unpainted walnut.
It would be out of the question, without numerous
illustrations, and within the limits to which it is
necessary to confine this chapter, to review in any
systematic manner the considerable quantity of wood
sculpture in the form of retablos, stall work, and single
figures attributed to Vigarny. His earlier style
suggests a Franco-Flemish influence, yet neither he
nor Berruguete were educated in Gothic schools. They
were the pioneers of the feeling and methods of the
Italian Renaissance, forcing it on their countrymen in
the face of considerable opposition. The national
temperament was far more inclined to the religious
feeling, and the artless expression of devotion fostered
by the pictorial methods of Gothic art, than to
classical forms and the glorification of human beauty
for its own sake. It needed a master mind to impose
upon it the elegant formulae which revived the ancient
mythology in the guise of the most holy personages,
and of canonized saints. Yet, as in default of positive
evidence we have to draw our conclusions from the
large quantity of work attributed to Vigarny, his
sympathies would appear to have been divided, and it
is sometimes difficult to distinguish his Gothic from
his Italian tendencies. Both he and Berruguete were
trained in Italy, but while our information of Vigarny's
early years and work is insufficient, Berruguete would
seem to have been a more consistent and still more
202
VIGARNY AND BERRUGUETE
ardent promoter of the Italian style. French and
Flemish influence in their early days must have been
very strong, for it continued throughout the sixteenth
century. Juan de Arphe, the goldsmith, severely re-
primanded his fellow-workers who never ceased copying
from French and Flemish pictures and engravings.
There was also a sculptor of a similar name to Vigarny
— Juan Borgona, also of Langres, and possibly a
brother of Felipe, who worked at Burgos between
1522-1540, and it is not unlikely that work attributed
to Philippe may, in reality, have been the outcome of
various hands during a number of years. There has
always been a curious tendency in every country's art to
give to the most popularly known master any work
of superior quality of whose origin there is no direct
evidence. We have seen this already in the cases of
Dtirer, Riemenschneider, Delia Quercia, and others.
Equally with Vigarny we have little record of the
actual training and foreign wanderings of Alonso
Berruguete, who, in the opinion of some, is given the
foremost place amongst all Spanish sculptors. He was
certainly acquainted with Michael Angelo, and adopted
with enthusiasm the arts of the Renaissance which he
studied in Italy at the period of its highest development
there. And we may take it that he was the most
influential in introducing the new system into his own
country. If, however, his style was derived from Italy,
he was not contented to follow it blindly in the spirit
of a mere copyist. Compared with Vigarny, and better
acquainted with Italian, Berruguete showed in his
work far more individuality and contributed more to
the formation of the national style which, however
much indebted to Italy, . is still distinctly Spanish.
The two men looked at the sources of their inspiration
from different points of view, or rather with eyes which
had been differently trained. Vigarny was of an older
generation, wedded to the Gothic ideas which in, his
203
WOOD SCULPTURE
early years in Spain he had found deeply rooted, and
still allied to the Mauresque. Berraguete, though the
son of a Gothic sculptor of considerable merit, found
the ground already prepared and ready to receive the
new impressions. Besides this he was in constant
communication with Italy, had frequently travelled
there and resided at Florence and Rome, was intimately
acquainted with the greatest Italian artists, was em-
ployed by Michael Angelo and, indeed, had almost
become an Italian himself. That he was a follower of
Jacopo della Quercia is evident in the fragments now
preserved in the museum of Valladolid of the best of
his retables — that of San Benito Real Of the two
great Spanish sculptors, therefore, the one, though
Spanish by birth, was Italian, and of the Renaissance
by education and temperament, the other French and
Gothic. Yet on these two stocks, with the peculiarly
national system of the use of colour, was engrafted the
system of sculpture which is nowhere more unmistak-
ably Spanish than in the case of the retables and single
figures in wood with which we are now concerned. Of
that system, which later on became still more distinctly
national, Berruguete was the principal creator* But
however influenced by his association with the greatest
Italian artists of the best period of the Renaissance,
his style lacks refinement and elegance. It is Italian,
Spanishified. We have great work from his hand in
marble, stone, and wood : statues and statuettes, choir
and stall work in collaboration with Vigarny as at
Toledo, or at Salamanca and Granada. We have even
Gothic work. Yet with all this, both in sculpture and
in painting, he degenerated into the most regrettable
mannerisms, for which the tendencies towards or
demand for rococo tastes which were rapidly imposing
themselves were no doubt responsible.
The names of Vigarny and of Berruguete are the
most popular ones in every mouth when there is
204
DAMIAN FORMENT
question of Spanish sculpture of the Renaissance. But
of a purer and more elevated — at least of a more
religious — style there was one who was a greater artist
than either, of the time when Gothic art still held sway,
even if its supremacy was already threatened. We
hear little of Damian Formente or Forment, and details
of his life are again provokingly absent. An architect
and sculptor, he was born probably about 1470, and, it
would appear, studied in Rome and Florence (not,
however, under Donatello, though he was greatly
influenced by the work of the Florentine master),
whence he must have returned to Spain at an early age,
for in 1501 he was at work on a retable in wood for
the Gothic church of Gandia in Valencia, his native
province: and, but a few years later, on his most
famous production, the alabaster retable of the church
of Our Lady, of the Pillar at Saragossa, His studies in
Italy certainly had not the effect of inclining him to Re-
naissance principles, against which he fought through-
out his life with the greatest obstinacy. The retable of
the Capiila del Pilar, and the still finer one in a similar
style, in wood, of the church of San Pablo, also at
Saragossa, are unsurpassed amongst the Spanish late
Gothic work of this description of the time. Unin-
fluenced by Berniguete, and refusing to be enticed by,
even though he studied Italian ideas, Forment through-
out his life was in the main faithful to Gothic sentiment
The retable of the Capilla del Pilar is in alabaster —
now denuded of colour — a material which from its
nature is amenable to almost identical treatment with
woods of a hard kind. The themes depicted are scenes
in the life of the Mother of Christ, the whole composi-
tion in arrangement and treatment of the panels, in the
ornamental and architectural details, and in the groups
and single figures, being certainly more suggestive of
Flemish than of Italian teaching. But to whatever
sources he may have gone, the work of Forment shows
205
WOOD SCULPTURE
no slavish spirit of imitation, and it is surprising that
his genius and individuality should not have been
placed on a higher level than that accorded to his more
celebrated contemporaries, Berruguete and Vigarny.
The retablo of San Pablo, of wood, painted and gilt,
and completed in 1517, is again quite Gothic. In
general character it is almost identical with the some-
what earlier retable of the Pilar. Yet in the details
there are certain differences, and while the spirit is still
Gothic, it would be idle to assert that this is true
without reservation. Indeed it is evident that the
sculptor has gone to various sources. Notwithstand-
ing this, the national type strongly predominates.
The Crucifixion group in the upper central panel, the
figure of the Apostle beneath, the eight groups of
episodes of the Passion, the four scenes in the life of St.
Paul, crowded with figures, the canopies of complicated
pinnacle work, the innumerable details, with hardly a
square inch of the composition undecorated, and the
elaborate arabesque foliage work of the borders, identical
with those of the alabaster retable, leave an impression
which is almost bewildering when we seek to charac-
terize the style. It is Gothic, it is plateresque, it
betrays a Flemish love of the dramatic and picturesque,
it is markedly oriental, it certainly cannot be quoted
as an example of a dislike for Italian teaching and
models, or a systematic avoidance of their use ; it is
Spanish, yet it is not the art of Berruguete. It is, in fine,
Damian Forment, and in execution it is a chef-d'ceuvre.
Notwithstanding the terrible destructions and dese-
crations which the perverted ideas of Churriguera
caused him to work in the latter part of the seventeenth
century on decorative art of all kinds, both Gothic
and of the Renaissance, there still exists throughout
Spain a very large number of magnificent retablos. In
the most famous cathedrals also, the silleria, by which
term is meant the ranges of stalls with their canopies,
206
SPANISH RETABLOS
thrones, and other adjuncts, are additional monuments
of wood-carving carried almost to extravagance in their
bewildering profusion of details. Although in origin
the retable was a simple background to an altar, and
in the earliest Spanish examples a light open-worked
construction, the tendency, even so early as the second
half of the fourteenth century, was towards the gigantic
and complicated edifices of which we may consider that
of Seville, completed in the early part of the sixteenth
century, the type and culminating point. From amongst
these, none of which are earlier than the fifteenth
century, a choice must be made which may fairly be
considered illustrative, if inadequately, of the greater
number. For this purpose we may take as an example
of an extremely mixed style, yet one which, as a whole,
remains Spanish and nothing else, the celebrated retablo
of Seville. It has already been sufficiently suggested,
and need hardly be further insisted upon, that in this
altar work, as well as in the silleria, we are to find an
art which, although so distinctive in character as to be
recognized as Spanish by the least versed in styles, is
yet hardly in any case of marked originality, but built
up and adapted from various sources of even widely
remote periods. The dominating elements which com-
bined to form what we call the plateresque style of the
Spanish Renaissance were, as has been stated, French,
Flemish, or German and Italian. To these must be
added the reminiscences of Oriental influences to which
allusion has already been made. Such a distinct
feature as the Spanish methods of polychrome or
estofado will not of course be overlooked.
The retablo of the high altar of the cathedral at
Seville, as it exists at present, is in style — if we
should accept the decision of Cean Bermudez in his
Description de la Catedral de Semlla — Gothic. Yet it
is a mixture of the most diverse elements, the pro-
duct of many minds and the work of many hands —
207
WOOD SCULPTURE
from the time when it was designed and begun by
Dancart in 1492, and under the hands of numerous
other entail adores, imagineros, and estofadores, whose
names and the particulars of their collaboration are
extant — until its completion nearly a century later in
1564. Constructed of larch wood, the screen, with its
elaborate ornamentation and innumerable groups and
single figures, extends the whole width of the choir, and
in height to the vaulting of the roof. Ten groups of
columns divide the composition into nine spaces,
crossed by horizontal bands of complicated carving
forming a series of 36 inches in four rows, the
borders carved with an elaborate theme of foliage
arabesques and bulbous oriental domelike ornaments,
each niche or panel containing a scene in the life of
Our Lord, and of His prototypes in the Old Testament,
starting from the story of the Fall. There is no mis-
taking the German character of these scenes: they
are of the North German schools, and despite the names
recorded by Bermudez of some of the earlier imagineros
and of painters and gilders such as Alejo Fernandez and
Andrez de Covarrubias, one can scarcely help wondering
whether they and some of the single figures are not of
German origin. The whole structure is dominated by
a Calvary of colossal style. That is a brief, prosaic
description of one of the most important of the Spanish
retablos in wood. To convey a general idea of these
astonishing constructions it would be difficult to sur-
pass the style of the great French descriptive writer
Thdophile Gautier. Whatever may be thought of
his talent as a word-painter, it is certain that the
impression which it leaves is a very truthful one.
Those who have read his Moscow and have seen the
building itself will have recognized the actuality and
force of his description of the church of Vassili
BlagennoL Equally telling are some passages which
I may venture to take from his Voyage en Espagne.
208
RKTAHLE OF THE CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE
I-' AGE 200
THE RETABLO OF SEVILLE CATHEDRAL
Inadequate as any translation must be, I shall give
them in English freely rendered and somewhat
abbreviated. Speaking of the cathedral and of the
retablo of Seville he says: 'The cathedral chapter
which ordered its construction summarizes its scheme
in the following phrase : " Let us raise a monument
which shall make posterity regard us as insane/' The
maddest, the most monstrous of Hindo pagodas cannot
approach in extravagance the cathedral of Seville. . . .
The retablo, or high altar, with its different scenes, its
architectural structures superposed one on another, its
rows of statuettes stage upon stage is, in itself alone,
an immense edifice reaching up to the vaulted roof.
The pascal candle is as big as the mast of a ship, and
weighs two thousand pounds. Everything is in the
same grandiose proportions. The choir, Gothic in
style, is enlivened by turrets, by spires, by open-worked
niches, by statuettes, by foliage work : it is a bewilder-
ing work which confounds our imagination, impos-
sible to understand in these our days ... a prodigy
of talent, of patience, and of genius/ And again : ' The
endeavour to describe, one after another, the riches of
the cathedral would be madness : a whole year would
be required to visit it in detail, and then one would not
have seen everything. We feel crushed under the
weight of so much magnificence, and know not where
to go next. The wish to see everything, and the im-
possibility of accomplishing one's desire, induces a
kind of feverish giddiness. Every style of architec-
ture is represented — Gothic severity, the Renaissance,
the plateresco, distinguished by a mad profusion of
ornamentation and by arabesques of inconceivable com-
plexity, rococo, Greek, and Roman. It is the sublime
uplifting of the soul towards the Infinite expressed in
terms of pinnacles, spires, bulbous domes, and ogival
arches raising to the skies their arms of stone, joining
in prayer their hands of gigantic proportions over the
o 209
WOOD SCULPTURE
heads of the people prostrate in supplication/ Or
again, in the description of the retablo of the cathedral
at Toledo: 'The high altar, or retablo, might itself,
alone, pass for a church. It is an enormous assem-
blage of slender columns, of niches, of statues, of foliage
work and arabesques, of which the most minute descrip-
tion could give but a feeble idea. The whole of this
architecture, rising to the very roof and surrounding
the sanctuary, is painted and gilded in the richest
manner imaginable. The dull, warm tone of the ancient
gilding is admirably set off by the shimmering streaks
of sunshine caught on their passage by the mouldings
and reliefs of the ornaments, producing a marvellous
effect of the most opulent picturesqueness/ It is indeed
piling Pelion on Ossa, and the gilding of gold. In the
midst of this excessive richness and profusion of
details any ordinary powers of description seem totally
to fail. It is all too immense in proportions, too high,
too wide : one is confused, one cannot take it all in.
One is inclined to be severe, but it is above criticism,
for the effect on the senses, compelling admiration, is
undeniable. Once more we may have recourse to
Th6ophile Gautier, who finds in such work the richest,
the most adorable, the most charming bad taste.
'The object of the sculptor seems to have been to
crowd together as much ornament as possible in the
least possible space. Here we find truncated columns
garlanded with clinging vines, interminable scrolls
inextricably convoluted, cherubs5 heads furnished with
wings, overcharged clouds, blazing and agitated flames,
f lories spreading out fan-shaped, curly leaf-work in
alf open bud or full expansion — all this, gilded and
painted in nature's richest colours. It is no longer the
delicacy and refinement of Gothic, nor has it the classic
taste of the Renaissance: instead of purity of line,
there is redundance. Yet still it is very fine, as is all
that is excessive and complete of its kind/ That
210
SPANISH REALISM
indeed is the impression one receives. Despite of all,
one is forced to admire, as ages and millions have
admired and praised. The retablo of the high altar of
the cathedral of Toledo, again of larchwood, is the
work of Enrique de Egas and Pedro Gumiel. Except
the statues and the figures of the bas-reliefs, which are
of the art of the encarnador and the estofador, it is
fully gilt, and, it may be said, peculiarly typical of the
estofado style of Gothic flamboyant which ended in
becoming utterly debased in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.
We have still to occupy ourselves with the carved
choir work and stalls in a succeeding chapter, and a
longer consideration of the wood-carving, generally, of
the Peninsula would lead us too far into the domain of
Spanish art as a whole, and beyond the limits of date
within which it is necessary to confine our attention.
The subject also is more than ordinarily connected
with painting and with sculpture in stone and marble,
and would necessitate constant allusions to these.
The influence of the Italian Renaissance was irresist-
ible, and, once established, of the most rapid growth,
though the process itself may have been slow and
tentative in its early stages. Soon, however, we find
the Spanish passion for realism overpowering every-
thing else. Such masters of painting as da Mena and
Cano did not disdain to give their aid in the prepara-
tion of figures clothed with painted stuffs, with addi-
tions of metal work, real chains and cords and the
like. Examples may be seen in the solitary case
in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which contains
in that collection the few contributions to this kind
0f work. The difference is great between it and
that which is exemplified in such beautiful figures as
.the one of Saint Catherine, elsewhere in the museum,
and at one time in the Maskell collection. It is,
however, hardly to be regretted that these seventeenth-
211
WOOD SCULPTURE
century painted figures are not more largely repre-
sented. One is compelled to ask whether we are to
consider such things as paintings or as sculptures,
and the question becomes exceedingly complicated.
The system was carried to excess. Every one has
heard of the crucifix of Burgos with its revolting
realism, whether it be true or not that the figure is
covered with human skin. Again following the ideas
of Thdophile Gautier, one cannot but admit that the
passion for truth was pushed to its ultimate limits.
We are spared not one drop of blood. We are forced
to contemplate the severed and contracted nerves, the
quivering flesh, the limbs mangled by the executioner,
the wounds caused by the stripes. It is all too sug-
gestive of the shambles. However repelling it may
be, this craving for realistic horrors is characteristic of
Spanish art and of the people, to whom the ideal and
the aesthetic are absolutely foreign. Sculpture alone
does not suffice. Their statues must be coloured, their
madonnas plastered with paint, furnished with eyes of
glass, with tears of pearl, and with real clothes. For
their tastes, illusion can never be carried far enough.
In my Ivories of this series, I have already described
the crucifix in the church of St James in Manchester
Square. In this, in many ways, it must be admitted,
admirable figure, the spirit of imitative realism is
carried as far as possible ivithout provoking remon-
strance, for it has many beauties. The Victoria and
Albert Museum has a crucifix with the figure in box-
wood, by Alonso Cano of quite another type, for which,
however, little can be said as a work of fine art. The
painted bust of a ' Mater Dolorosa' (Plate XXXIIL) in the
same museum is a popular and representative work, by
an unknown sculptor. Inspired from Italy — one may
say by Mino da Fiesole or Nerrochio and the Siena
school — it may even have been produced in Italy. Yet
it is unmistakably Spanish. There is another such
212
WOOD SCULPTURE
century painted figures are not more largely repre-
sented. One is compelled to ask whether we are to
consider such things as paintings or as sculptures,
and the question becomes exceedingly complicated.
The system was carried to excess. Every one has
heard of the crucifix of Burgos with its revolting
realism, whether it be true or not that the figure is
covered with human skin. Again following the ideas
of Th^ophile Gautier, one cannot but admit that the
passion for truth was pushed to its ultimate limits.
We are spared not one drop of blood. We are forced
to contemplate the severed and contracted nerves, the
quivering flesh, the limbs mangled by the executioner,
the wounds caused by the stripes. It is all too sug-
gestive of the shambles. However repelling it may
be, this craving for realistic horrors is characteristic of
Spanish art and of the people, to whom the ideal and
the aesthetic are absolutely foreign. Sculpture alone
does not suffice. Their statues must be coloured, their
madonnas plastered with paint, furnished with eyes of
glass, with tears of pearl, and with real clothes. For
their tastes, illusion can never be carried far enough.
In my Ivories of this series, I have already described
the crucifix in the church of St. James in Manchester
Square. In this, in many ways, it must be admitted,
admirable figure, the spirit of imitative realism is
carried as far as possible "without provoking remon-
strance, for it has many beauties. The Victoria and
Albert Museum has a crucifix with the figure in box-
wood, by Alonso Cano of quite another type, for which,
however, little can be said as a work of fine art. The
painted bust of a ' Mater Dolorosa' (Plate xxxm.) in the
same museum is a popular and representative work, by
an unknown sculptor. Inspired from Italy — one may
say by Mino da Fiesole or Nerrochio and the Siena
school — it may even have been produced in Italy. Yet
it is unmistakably Spanish. There is another such
212
BUST. MATER DOLOROSA. FULLY PAINTED. SPANISH, SEVENTEENTH CENTL'RV
2. PORTION OF A PREDELLA. PAINTED. SPANISH. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
VICTORIA A.\D ALBERT ?,tlS£OI
PAGE 2J2
SPANISH REALISM
figure In the Berlin Museum, ascribed by Dr. Bode to
Montanez. It is still more expressive of grief, with
solid tears of crystal upon the painted cheeks. Both
are of oak, and painted in oils. It would be impos-
sible to pass by the celebrated statue of St Francis in
the cathedral of Toledo, though we may not agree with
the somewhat extravagant praise which has been given
to it. At one time attributed to Alonso Cano, it is
now generally admitted to be by Pedro da Mena,
There is another, at one time in the Odiot collection,
with which it has considerable analogy, and, indeed, as
it is more generally known and as opportunities for
examining it are more favourable, one may be justified
in considering it by far the finer of the two. Both are
of walnut, fully painted. The saint is represented in
his habit, the hood drawn over his head, the waist
girdled with a cord, the pale ascetic face, that one sees
in the depth of the hood, calm, yet, as it were, in an
ecstasy of pious suffering. Of the time there is
certainly no other work so fine in painted Spanish
sculpture in wood.
213
CHAPTER XII
CRUCIFIXES AND MADONNA FIGURES
FIGURES for crucifixes, statuettes, and groups
of the Virgin and Child, and single figures of
various saints, in Gothic and pre-Gothic times,
form a very important division of our subject. All art
of these periods being religious art, the first named are
almost sufficient by themselves to reconstitute the
history of sculpture and its development through the
Romanesque period and until the Gothic merged into
Renaissance methods. But whatever may have been
the relative importance of wood sculpture among the
other arts, it must not be forgotten that, equally with
monumental figure work, it held its place in subordina-
tion to architecture. An examination of this class of
the figure work of the earlier period would show two
different types : the one resulting from carefully trans-
mitted traditions derived from oriental sources, the
other the rude efforts of the independent self-taught
artist doing his best to copy faithfully from models,
which, in one way or another, came into his hands.
Some examples are evidently the work of simple
country people rather than of trained artists or estab-
lished workshops, but they are on this account none
the less touching and valuable. In previous chapters
frequent references have been made to the gradual
emancipation of the artist from the hieratic domination
which had long prevailed. But our information is
vague indeed concerning the practical methods by
214
EARLY CRUCIFIXES
which this was accomplished. From the designing
and erection of buildings and their monumental sculp-
ture, down to the smallest details of artistic work
of any description, the impulse and direction were in
the hands of the monasteries, but we have no means of
knowing what was the actual work of the monks and
what of lay artists outside their precincts. There are
references to monastic art in the carving of crucifixes
in the chronicles of Subiaco of the second half of the
eleventh century, which prove their activity in this line,
but, as usual, the information is vague. Even with
regard to dates we have to be content with such vague
ascriptions as the eleventh or twelfth century. Now
the lapse of a hundred years is a considerable time,
and from the beginning of one century to the end of
another involves twice as long. In addition, we have
to bear in mind the persistence of types and the copy-
ing and adapting which would have gone on for
perhaps a century longer. It is unfortunate that our
examples of an earlier date than the eleventh century
are few indeed. When we reach the twelfth they
become, even if still few in number, of the highest
importance, not only as connecting links in the evolu-
tion of the arts, but also from their own intrinsic
beauty. The dark ages, during which all arts had
slept except the art of war, had passed. Everything
was waking up. It was the age of literature, of
chivalry, of devotion, and of a passionate longing for
graphic expression. The archaic, squat proportions of
the figure sculpture, the total disregard of truth to
nature, and a uniform blank stolidity of expression
give place to a tendency towards the opposite extreme,
and the effort to express elegance of form is sought
after in an exaggerated length of limb and straight-
flowing draperies in parallel folds. Progress is com-
paratively rapid, and sculptural art seems to have
arrived in the thirteenth century at the point of its
215
WOOD SCULPTURE
highest idealistic expression. Unfortunately we can-
not hope to find in our museums and churches many
examples of single figures in wood. Even in monu-
mental sculpture what exists are, for the most part, on
the facades of famous cathedrals, saved, by their
position, from the destructions which a law of nature
seems to impose on every country from time to time.
In addition, there is the perishable nature of wood.
The crucifix (more strictly, the figures for crucifixes)
is one of the most important applications of sculpture
to religious purposes ; but examples in any material of
an earlier date than the twelfth, or of mid-Gothic type
than the fourteenth, century are of extreme rarity. In
ivory there exist scarcely any at all earlier than the
seventeenth century, but in wood rood figures abound
in all countries except in England. It will be unneces-
sary here to review the history of the representation of
the crucifixion. I have referred to it at considerable
length in my Ivories of this series. Many centuries
— five hundred years at least — passed by before the
reverential awe which hung about all reference to the
sacred event permitted any representation at all in
which a human figure should be used, and many more
during which the figure was hardly more than a con-
ventional formula. St. Gregory of Tours, about 593,
mentions a painting in the church of Narbonne repre-
senting Christ on the Cross. He remarks that the
Saviour was unclothed, except by a loin-cloth, and that
this nudity was a cause of scandal to the faithful. (In
gloria Martyrum, 22.) It would not be difficult, start-
ing from the doors of Santa Sabina in Rome and
continuing up to the crucifix which Brunelleschi made
in competition with Donatello, to write from the
examples we have in wood alone the story of the
evolution of the crucifix as we find it in the universal
type of to-day. But it would require more space than
we have at our disposal and many illustrations. A
216
PARTS OF CRUCIFIX FIGURES. FRENCH. TWELFTH CENTURY
ROMANESQUE CRUCIFIXES
choice of a few only will therefore be made, and th<
description of them must be brief. I may say at onc<
that it is with the greatest regret that I find it neces-
sary to condense what is, equally with Madonns
figures, a most important part of our subject. In the
eleventh century the Byzantine formula — archaic, as in
the ivory crucifix of Leon, now in the archseological
museum, Madrid — was the model throughout the
world. The art was primitive, the figure draped in a
long skirt, the feet nailed separately, the eyes staring
and expressionless. In the Romanesque period, the
idea was of a Christ triumphant rather than of suffer-
ing Humanity. In the two or three examples presently
to be adduced, and in many others, the head of our
Lord is of the noblest type. He is represented with
the eyes, as a rule, closed, in the moment before death ;
not as a human being still suffering the most cruel
tortures. The tragedy is finished, nothing remains but
an impassive serenity. The hair is conventionally
treated in a hardly ever varying fashion of regularly
curled bands arranged in long channelling streaks, the
undulating locks of the moustache and beard each
ending in a little curl. Sometimes there is a fillet or
diadem, but no crown of thorns, which seems not to
have been common before the thirteenth century., A
detail that must not be forgotten is that it was usual to
add a metal crown set thick with jewels. The expres-
sion is full of simplicity ; of the nobility of suffering.
There is no exaggeration of enduring agony, but as M.
Courajod has well said, 'it is a king asleep ': or, at
least, it is the placid calm which comes after death to
those "who have suffered violence or some dreadful
accident. Yet, if we should take, for example, the
twelfth century Christ of the Doucet collection
(Plate xxxiv.), or even the fourteenth-century crucifix
of Anderlecht, the artist has known how to express,
without attempting absolute realism, the ^sufferings
~ 217
WOOD SCULPTURE
which have been passed through. The head falls, th<
mouth is slightly open, the eyes closed as if in sleep
the expression calm and resigned. One cannot bu
think that the sculptor has gone to nature for hi;
inspiration, even if he has respected and continuec
traditional models in certain features, such as the hail
and beard.
To sum up the characteristics which distinguish a
crucifix of early Romanesque type from one of Gothic
times, the figure hangs straight, and is not contorted,
the arms are at right angles, the head erect, the eyes
closed or calmly impassive if open, the body some-
what emaciated, the feet nailed separately, and resting
on a scabellumj the hair falling in serpentine ring-
lets over the shoulders, the lines of the ribs, and
folds of flesh regularly marked in a conventional
manner, a short plain skirt from waist to knees. It
is a representation of Divinity triumphing over Death.
As we approach to and are afterwards in full Gothic
times, the body becomes contorted, there is more
naturalism in the eyes, the knees are drawn up, the
body falls with its own weight, the arms depart more
and more from the horizontal, the feet are nailed with
one nail, the crown of thorns appears, the drapery is
scanty. The artist seeks to give, in every way, an im-
pression of human suffering, and to express it — as
when we reach the Italian quattrocento masterpieces —
by the display of anatomical knowledge. The body is
almost completely nude, or, as we shall find in di Nuto's
crucifixes equally as in the paintings of Giotto and
others, whom, no doubt, the sculptors followed, the
beautiful form is partly covered with a transparent
drapery of a thin silky material. The Christ is no
longer the King, the Divine conqueror, with regal
attributes and emblems. It is the human side, the
sacrifice by suffering which is emphasized. To take
for example the crucifix — French work of the twelfth
218
ROMANESQUE CRUCIFIXES
century — presented to the museum of the Louvre in
1903 by M. Courajod (Plate xxxiv.). It is interesting to
compare this with the beautiful ivory crucifix fragment
of the thirteenth century in the Kensington Museum,
described and figured in my Ivories (p. 257). The
character of each is widely different, yet each is the
work of a great artist who knew what he was doing,
and was under no servile restraint of tradition. Nor
have the Courajod, and much less the ivory figure, any-
thing in common with the archaic hieratism of the ivory
crucifix of Leon or with the type of the Limoges
bronzes of an indeterminate number of years earlier.
Romanesque it is, no doubt, but in its truthful natural-
ness this admirable head of a supernatural beauty,
calm, resigned, is fairly comparable to the Gothic figure
of Kensington. The artist knew what to observe in
nature, knew what to take and what to leave, in his
submission to the rules in which he had been trained.
He has gone, no doubt, to more ancient models for the
treatment of the hair and beard, and for certain general
principles, but the individuality of his work is not
obscured by this. It is of a type that we should hardly
have expected to find developed before the middle of
the thirteenth century. In the anatomy we see how
nature has been consulted, but without any servile
attempt at reproducing it. The artist is impatient of
the bonds under which art had so long been held in
leash, yearning for freedom, yet obedient to those
traditions in which he had been trained that he knew
to be good and reasonable in themselves. From the
position of one of the arms it may be part of a Deposi-
tion group rather than an actual crucifixion : the
beginning of the first stage of the taking down from
the Cross. The figure is painted after the methods of
Theophilus, so often alluded to here. There are some
restorations, for example, the whole of the left arm,
but the head, if somewhat deteriorated by the ravages
219
WOOD SCULPTURE
of time, is fairly preserved. The art is of the southern
districts of France : of Toulouse, or perhaps of the
Burgundian provinces. There are other early French
examples of almost equal merit ; for instance, that of
the presbytery of St. Denis d'Amboise, but they can-
not now be followed.
A few words must accompany another beautiful
fragment here illustrated (Plate xxxiv.). It is the head
of a crucifix figure bequeathed to the Louvre by
M. Doucet. It is of oak, and, unfortunately, not
in good condition. Still, sufficient remains to afford
a very fine example of the beginnings of realism,
and one may reasonably come to the conclusion
that, at so early a period, the artist worked from
a living model. Another fragment is the fine life-
sized head in chestnut wood in the Cluny Museum
(Plate xxxrv.). It is again twelfth-century work, at one
time covered with linen or parchment painted to repre-
sent the human skin. The expression is full of
benevolence, the eyes open, the hair carefully divided,
and there is no crown of thorns. Our general observa-
tions, which apply to all the figures of the period, need
not be repeated. It is impossible to fix a definite date
or a place of production for these early examples of
crucifixes in wood. Usually of life-size, or even
colossal, it is not unlikely that many were made in
Auvergne, where the early type both of these and of
Madonnas continued into quite late in the thirteenth
century : some features, as in the black Christs of Saint-
Flour and of Montsalvy to as late, perhaps, as the
fifteenth century. The reader may be referred to the
work on the Romanesque churches of the Haute,
Auvergne, by M. de Rochemonteix, in which several
are mentioned (see Bibliography). A twelfth-century
crucifix at Clermbnt Ferrand has the eyes enamelled,
and the mouth made' to move with springs which
might be actuated by the preacher's foot. The Christ
220
ITALIAN CRUCIFIXES
of the church of Anderlecht, in Brabant, is a work of
the end of the fourteenth century of rare merit, yet
showing in its somewhat stiff and conventional ana-
tomy, and in the fashion of the long dank hair, in the
style of the South Kensington ivory, the persistence of
the ancient styles. So also in a fifteenth-century rood
group in the same museum (No. 714, 1895) the Saviour's
head distinctly follows a much earlier type, at the same
time that the figure of St. John has the slimness and
all the smirking mannerism of the period. Another
interesting early figure is that of the church of Saint-
Pierre, Louvain, possibly part of a Deposition group.
Westlake, commenting on it, thought it as early as the
tenth century. But the feet are nailed together, and
this, together with the realistic type, can hardly place it
earlier than the end of the twelfth or even into the
thirteenth.
A brief mention must suffice to call attention
to a Deposition group of the Pisan school in the
cathedral of Volterra. It is over life-size, and whether
as an example of the system of polychrome in sculp-
ture of the period, or on account of its own intrinsic
merits, it must be considered as one of the finest pieces
of Italian romanesque or romanesque Gothic in exist-
ence. With regard to date, it would be difficult to be
more precise than by according the margin of from the
first half of the twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth
century, the first approximate date being the most
likely. The subject of the earlier crucifixes might be
pursued to an unlimited extent, and there is ample
material for illustration. Of Italian examples of the
middle of the fourteenth century it must suffice to note
briefly those of Nicol6 di Nuto of the Sienese school,
of which there are several at Orvieto in the churches of
San Francesco and San Domenico, and in the muni-
cipal museum. They are life-size and over, painted of
course, and of astounding realism in the attention to
221
WOOD SCULPTURE
anatomical detail (Figured in JSenturi, Storia, iv.
325.) Italian crucifixes of the fifteenth century are
very numerous. Probably all the great sculptors in
marble, bronze, the precious metals, and in wood, would
have tried their hands at a subject which combined
their skill in anatomical expression with the exercise of
their imagination and piety. Vasari mentions a large
number who worked them in wood : amongst them
Verrocchio who, he says, was a universal genius, at once
goldsmith, sculptor, painter, engraver, and musician.
But it is necessary to confine ourselves to the two
famous crucifixes of Brunelleschi (Plate xxxv.) and of
Donatello in the churches of Santa Maria Novella
and of the Santa Croce at Florence. We may take
it, that leaving on one side the question of cruci-
fixions in painting, the first is the ultimate expres-
sion of the system evolved from its forerunners
from early Christian times, through the archaicism
of the tenth and eleventh centuries, and the man-
nerisms of the Gothic period: the precursor of
the type continued to this day. In it we have this
method in its purest and best form, imbued with all the
new spirit of humanism, perfect in anatomy, touching
in expression, yet avoiding anything like the horrors of
cruel torment, and the exaggerations of the effect of
wounds. The head is simply filleted over the carefully
curled hair, the drapery simple without fluttering ends,
the arms at a more acute angle than formerly, the
emaciated anatomy naturalistic, the expression thought-
ful rather than suffering. As a masterpiece of sculp-
ture its own interest is very great, and in addition there
is the curious tradition of its origin arising from a con-
test with Donatello when the two were fellow-pupils in
the same studio, Brunelleschi being then twenty-four,
and Donatello nine years younger. The story has often
been told, and though we may be inclined to doubt the
possibility of Brunelleschi having arrived at such
222
PLATE XX.
CRUCIFIX. BY BRUNELLESCHI. FIFTEENTH CENTURY
SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE
' PAGE 223
DONATELLO AND BRUNELLESCHI
masterly perfection at so early an age, it may be given
on the authority of Vasari in his own words, as we have
them in his Lives of the Painters. He says in his
Life of Brunelleschi \ ' Now it happened in those days
that Donatello had completed a crucifix in wood which
was placed in the church of Santa Croce in Florence,
beneath the story of the girl restored to life by St.
Francis, a picture painted by Taddeo Gaddi, and he
desired to have the opinion of Filippo respecting his
work, but he repented of having asked it since Fiiippo
replied that he had placed a clown on the Cross.
Donatello answers, "Take wood, then, and make one
thyself." Filippo quietly and secretly goes to work and
does so, to Donato's so great surprise that, carrying an
apron full of eggs the first time it is shown to him, he
drops and breaks them all, and not only confesses him-
self conquered, but declares the work a miracle/ We
may briefly dispatch the attempt of Donatello. His
fame will rest on the great bronze crucifix in the Santo
at Padua, executed many years later. Cicognara, in his
Storia, thus compares the two : Donatello's crucifix is
rigid, ignoble, without abandon and without softness,
with neither grace nor elevation of feeling. The
other is the eternal glory of Brunelleschi. And in-
deed Donatello has put on the Cross a powerful,
muscular man, whom the stripes and wounds have
hardly weakened, and whom Death has not subdued.
In the art of Brunelleschi, inspired above all by
devotional feeling, he gives us the sufferings and death
in the accomplishment of the sacrifice. In regard to
the German crucifixes in wood of the fourteenth and
early fifteenth centuries, which abound, space will now
permit but a brief mention. Reference has already
been made to some of those by Veit Stoss and
Riemenschneider. The earlier examples follow the
type which was universal in Romanesque times.
Many of the representations of Calvary in the German
223
WOOD SCULPTURE
retables conform to the schools of the Netherlands,
and are evidently inspired, directly or indirectly, by
the Flemish and German primitives. We find the
same tall crosses with narrow beams, the long thin
legs and arms, the same carriage of head and drawing
of the feet, the same expressions. In a small four-
teenth-century relief in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum
we have a following of the system so usual in French
Gothic ivories, especially in the pose of the body, and
In the knotted anatomy of the arms. And when we
come to the life-size and colossal crucifixes of the late
German Gothic period, it is evident that Veit Stoss
and his contemporaries merely profited by their Italian
education, and that the models from which they
adapted were those of the schools of Donatello and
Brunelleschi. To these they added their own man-
nerisms and an exaggerated treatment of the drapery
which is especially characteristic of German crucifixes.
This was made to serve a decorative purpose, and they
revelled in twists and curves and floating scrolls which
at times verged on the fantastic. It must suffice to
mention two well-known crucifixes, attributed to Veit
Stoss, which may be taken as typical of many others
of more or less merit. The first, at one time in the
Spitalkirche, is now in the Germanic Museum of
Niirnberg ; the other, which presents great similarities,
is in the Chiesa d'Ogni Santi at Florence.
Still more instructive than the crucifixes, with
regard to the evolution of sculpture in wood up
to the end of the Gothic period, are the Madonna
figures and groups. These are fairly numerous, and
include, besides such pairs of detached figures as
the Annunciation statues of Italy, those in which
we have the Blessed Virgin standing with the Child
in her arms, or seated either alone or with the Infant,
in many touching maternal attitudes ; as the Mater
Dolorosa at the foot of the cross, or weeping over
224
EARLY MADONNAS
the dead Saviour in the groups known as Pietas.
Several of the two last-named kinds have already
been noticed. We shall now confine our attention
to the Madonnas as the term is generally used. In
the twelfth century, as in earlier representations, the
Virgin sits throned in majesty, as a great queen or
empress, the chair itself an emblem of authority of the
kind which we find on the consular diptychs. She
herself is the only figure, the centre of homage and
devotion, almost of worship: a figure of majestic
hieratic dignity, noble and queenly, inexpressibly great,
as the one chosen from amongst all by the Almighty.
She is not yet the tender mother, effacing herself and
concentrating attention on the child which she presents
to us for our adoration, emphasizing her maternal
feelings by lavish endearments. Seldom, as soon was
to become the universal style, is her head affectionately
turned towards Him as she holds Him in her arms,
seated in her lap, or standing on her knee. It is but
gradually, as the thirteenth century progresses, that
she becomes the sweet and gentle mother, in the
attitude which was so favourite a one ; for example,
in the charming little early Madonna in the gallery at
Perugia, where the Child looks up in her face and
seizes her chin with His hand. But, as in other
paintings, in those of Cimabue or of Guido da Siena,
in the Uffizi, the coming type is still undeveloped.
The Byzantine formula continues to prevail in the
majestic placidity, the solemnity of expression of the
Madonna Gloriosa, and in the treatment of the
draperies. The Romanesque traditions linger long
throughout the earlier Gothic period, even if through a
comparatively slow process of evolution the statuesque
gives place to a more mundane type of nobility, the
solemn majesty of the Odigitria to maternal tenderness
and grace. Instead of an empress enthroned we are
presently to have the courtly lady, or, as Ruskin has
P 225
WOOD SCULPTURE
characterized the French thirteenth-century statuettes,
the Picarde soubrette. To what influences, indeed, of
the great masters of the early Middle Ages may we
not attribute even Donatello's ' Virgin of Padua/ where
she sits, as in the old twelfth-century Madonnas, on
a throne which has sphinxlike supports, immovable,
a queen presenting a Child King to His people, He
Himself, enthroned on her lap with none of the playful
suggestiveness of the quattrocento types ?
As in the ivories, the twelfth-century Madonna
in wood is still the central figure demanding our
attention. It is to her that the sculptor addresses
all he knows of art. The Holy Child is, as it
were, left to more conventional treatment as if be-
yond his power of expression. He is grave beyond
His apparent years, having with the form of a
child a much older look, as He raises His hand
in blessing. Unfortunately, what examples we have
in wood in this country, such as the two in the
Victoria and Albert Museum (Plate xxxvi.), can hardly
be said to be the work of great masters, though it
cannot be doubted that sculptors as well as painters
would have devoted the highest talent to such a
subject. Such figures as these would seem to be
rather from the hands of simple country people. As
in the ivories, by the beginning of the thirteenth
century there came about in the smaller figure work
a more general assimilation with the monumental
sculpture of the period. France is foremost in setting
the fashion, and the dominant type is the sweet-smiling
mother affectionately toying with her child ; the atti-
tudes are of the most studied grace pushed to ex-
tremes, which become mannerism ; the pose is affected,
at least in the 'ivory' twist or bend of the figure;
the draperies rich and voluminous. Compared with
the feeling of the previous period, it is as if we were
transported from heavenly to earthly regions. The
226
MADONNAS
Mother of God becomes the mother of our own race,
smiling, playing, coquetting with the Child as He
amuses Himself with a flower, a fruit, or a bird, or
affectionately entwines His arm round her neck. They
are courtly figures, made for the delight of courts, and
it is indeed hardly surprising that not in a single
instance have figures of this type been endowed by
the populace with miraculous gifts as in the case of
the homely Flemish madonnas to which reference
will presently be made. There is in fact almost a
stereotyped pattern, a repetition of a similar smile,
the same candid expression, fashion of hair and veil,
and pointed shoe peeping out beneath the multifolded
draperies. Yet, notwithstanding this family resem-
blance, how sweet is this series : always the same, yet
always with differences as we find them in ivory and
wood, leaving out of consideration painting and other
branches of sculpture! The Child is almost always
clothed. The earliest examples unclothed to the waist,
are not till the second quarter of the fourteenth
century. Later on, He is quite naked, and it is about
mid-fourteenth century that we first find giving the
breast which afterwards became very usual, especially
— if we may judge from few examples — in England,
With the advance of the fourteenth century there Is
again a change of feeling: a wholly different type.
As in the representations of the crucifixion we had
put before us Christ triumphant, crowned with a royal
crown instead of one of thorns, and as this gave way
to an insistence on His suffering humanity, so now
in the Madonnas the brightness and cheerfulness
associated with the life of the Virgin changed into
the tendency of emphasizing and continually present-
ing to the devotion of the people her sufferings as a
mother bereaved of her son. Especially in Flemish
art the Holy Virgin is represented as fainting in the
arms of her attendants, weeping at the foot of the
227
WOOD SCULPTURE
cross or over the body of our Lord extended on her
lap. It was the result of the devotional mysticism
of the time, inspired by the teachings and writings of
St. Francis of Assisi in the latter part of the twelfth
century, of St. Gertrude, and by the paintings and
illuminations founded upon these. Yet it would be
difficult to lay down any rigid type, and, as in painting
and in other sculptures national characteristics asserted
themselves. We may note, however, the extreme
contrasts presented between what may be called —
without denying its infinite charm — the smart simper-
ing type of the thirteenth century and the nobility of
such a group as the polychromed Madonna in wood
in the Maignan collection, or of the one in the Louvre
presented by M. Albert Bossy — both French art of
the fourteenth century, which will presently be noticed.
Madonna statuettes in wood of so early a period as
the eleventh and twelfth centuries are of course of
considerable rarity, as indeed they are also among the
ivories. Probably they were numerous enough, and
we must judge their general character from the few
still existing; from bronze and enamel figures and
from the early mosaics. We are fortunate in possess-
ing two examples in the museum at Kensington. It
is interesting to compare these with an ivory group
of somewhat later date in the Louvre from the Dutuit
collection, with which they are clearly connected, and
there are others in the Cluny Museum (No. 1037) and
in the Basilewsky collection of the Hermitage, St.
Petersburg, Both the wood and the ivory statuettes
are characterized by the archaic and stony attitudes
peculiar to the age. In the ivories there is certainly
a tendency to the realism which became more marked
in the succeeding century. Evidently the artists were
not of the same class. In the wood examples, particu-
larly, the disproportions of the too long busts, the
too large heads and the clumsy execution are marked,
228
MADONNAS
The impression first conveyed is that they are hardly
in advance of the south sea islands type of fetish
image. But we must remember that they were in-
tended to be, and were at one time, coloured and set
with stones and gems. These are rude works no
doubt, but let us put against them the superb Madonna
in wood of the church of Sta. Maria Maggiore at
Alatri ; central, or southern Italian work of the twelfth
century. It is the finest of all existing Madonnas of
the early mediaeval ages, formerly polychrorned, now
entirely gilded. The Child is almost a smaller repe-
tition of the figure of the mother, having the same
long face, the same expression and arrangement of the
hair. It is a proof that at that early time a great
school of sculpture in the round must have existed in
central Italy, and that the art was not confined to
ornament alone. Although scarce, there are other still
existing figures in various churches and museums.
Amongst notable ones are a seated Madonna in the
Niirnberg Museum, another in the minster church of
Essen (figured in Ausm' Weerth, Plate xxiv.) which
has eyes of enamel, and two similar ones in the
treasury of Hildesheim. Nor must we forget the
Madonna in the Berlin Museum, made in 1139 by the
priest Martino, nor the Odigitria, entirely gilt, known
as the Madonna of Constantinople. But there is a
whole series of Flemish Madonnas in wood of the
thirteenth century which are still strongly marked
with the archaic type of the Romanesque formulas,
yet show at the same time the existence of a realistic
school and an independent observation of nature on
the part of the artist. That he was self-taught is, in
some cases, evident. At any rate, he followed freely
his own bent, released from hieratic conventions both
in the type which he chose for his model, in the ex-
pression of the features, and in the arrangement of the
accessories.- In general, the influence of France at
229
WOOD SCULPTURE
the beginning of the century is not to be contested.
The formula is similar. The Virgin is seated on a
thronelike chair or low bench, as, for example, in the
ivories of the Cluny or the Hamburg Museum which
are in certain ways analogous. The Child either sits
or stands on the left knee, or on the lap, instead of
being held in the arms as was, later on, the universal
practice, and raises His hand in blessing. She pre-
sents to us with pride, as it were, her son. The
draperies fall in long straight folds. The chief dis-
tinctions from the French formulae are in national
characteristics or preferences, for which, as elsewhere,
it is not always easy to account. For example, whence
did we English derive the type of head and expression
of features distinguished by the high forehead and
almond eyes of our ivory and alabaster figures of the
fourteenth century? Except when the inspiration
would appear to come directly from some classical
source, the Flemish Madonna is of the womanly rather
than of the queenly or noble type.
These early Flemish Madonnas are, then, evidence
of the growing feeling for realism, whatever may
have been the extent to which it was reacted upon
by the increasing influence of French idealism. A
few of these interesting— and certainly important —
figures may be briefly noted. Unfortunately it is
extremely difficult to obtain adequate photographs
of them. The original of the one here given suffers
also from modern restoration and repainting. The
figure of the Child is entirely new. The miraculous
Madonna of Alsemberg — a small village in the
neighbourhood of Brussels— (Plate xxxvi.) presents
features which are a combination of deeply - rooted
traditional motives with an evident endeavour to sub-
stitute for them a more natural type directly drawn
from living models with which the artist was familiar.
Naive though the representation may be, there is
230
FLEMISH MADONNAS
poetry in this young mother calling for attention to
herself and for adoration of her divine Child. It is
not surprising that it should appeal to homely instincts
and even to all classes, and thus become qualified,
with many of the others, for miraculous powers. The
curious smile in the small half-moon conformation
of the mouth is characteristic of several Flemish
Madonnas of this period. It is, in fact, a stereotyped
fashion confined to this school; a reminiscence of,
perhaps, and attempt to reproduce, the mincing affec-
tation of the French. Another image, of the same
period, also reputed miraculous, and of similar
advanced tendencies is that of the church of Saint
Sulpice, Diest A third, the Madonna of Laeken,
again among the miraculous, presents the same
solemn and stiff attitudes and traditional draperies,
the Child held up high on one knee. It is, however,
less archaic, and the expression of the Virgin is more
refined. Of the same school is the Madonna of Hal.
Unfortunately much damaged, it is of a most remark-
able type. The Holy Child, after having received Its
nourishment, reposes on the mother's knee. The
physiognomy of the Virgin has a pure Greek profile of
peculiar beauty. The image known as Notre-Dame du
chant d'Oiseaux — Onze Ueve Vrouw in Vogelzang — in
the church of the P£res-Conventuels of Brussels, is of
the second half of the century and, naturally, is even
more affected by French influence, though the type of
face, and somewhat squat figure are still national As
an example of the persistence of traditions and mixture
of styles, we may take the interesting Madonna — Virgo
sedes Sapientite — of the church of St. Pierre, Louvain.
Here, we are in full fifteenth century (1442), yet the
attitude and the arrangement and style of the draperies
are in accord with the ancient traditions, while the
head of the Virgin is decidedly realistic, and ^ the Child
sits playing with a bird in the French fashion of the
231
WOOD SCULPTURE
time. Yet one more may be cited in the large Madonna
figure, fully . coloured, of the church of St. Jacques,
Louvain, one of the finest existing of Flemish work of
the first half of the fourteenth century. What is most
noticeable is the unusual arrangement of the drapery.
The Child, naked to the waist, is thence covered with
the mother's veil, except the left leg from the knee.
The whole treatment of this drapery, the oblique line
from the shoulder across the breast, the folds which
follow and do not conceal the form, the indication of
some soft silky texture, the rich, jewelled ornamenta-
tion— all this is charming, and due not to the poly-
chrome decoration alone, but to the art of the sculptor,
as consummate as in any French figure work of a
similar kind and period. We have here also the
fashionable bend or twist so much affected in the
thirteenth century, which has been attributed to various
causes, amongst them that it was simply following the
curve of an ivory tusk. Personal influence in the
matter of costume probably had more to do with it.
A homely figure in the church of N. D. de la Dyle at
Malines derives its name — Onze lieve J^rouw van Schewe
— from this peculiarity. The references to these
Flemish Madonnas, of which a few have been cited,
have necessarily been brief. They are none the less
of considerable importance in the history of wood
sculpture, and the student will do well to jefer to the
erudite articles in the Annales de la Sod&g archfo-
logique de Bruxelles (toms. viii., ix., x.), by M. Destrdes,
who photographed several of them before they were
restored and repainted.
French Madonna statuettes in wood of the four-
teenth century are comparatively rare. The type
followed to a considerable extent, and often preserved
entirely, the traditions of the previous century. The
drapery alters somewhat and becomes more compli-
cated, displaying itself in voluminous folds and
232
MADONNA. FRENCH. FOURTEENTH ^.;^-T^k^'.
louvkii (DHSSY CCLI.F.CI ION)
MADONNAS
stiffly defined angles and zig-zags. If we do not
lose completely the sweetly smiling expression,
amounting sometimes to affectation and coquetry,
there is a tendency, at any rate, to greater nobility,
more striving after distinction, less simpering coquet-
tishness, less suggestion of worldly fascination. What
greater contrast could there be than between the almost
frivolous type of the thirteenth century as we have it
in so many charming ivories, and the nobility of such
a group as the one in wood of the Maignan collection,
of another of similar yet still finer character bequeathed
to the Louvre by M. Albert Bossy, or of that in
the FitzHenry collection in the Victoria and Albert
Museum. For all that, in such figures, to use the
trite French phrase, the more the changes, the more it
is always the same thing. The ancient formulae cannot
be got rid of. The feeling, the attitude in general, the
draperies of the twelfth century are with us still, two
hundred years later, and if the Virgin sits no longer in
enthroned majesty, but with a happy mother's smiling
face, the ideal is still there under the more real. The
figures are, as yet, from no human model. It is merely
another phase of the evolution towards the complete
change which a little more than a century was to bring
forth. May we not bear in mind the hieratic Madonna
of Donatello made for the altar of the Cappella del Santo
at Padua, that solemn figure of an antique matron rising
from the richly decorated chair supported by sphinxes,
and still holding in her lap the Child Who blesses in
this rather awkward position ? It is hardly too much to
say that of the whole of the Gothic period there is no
finer group in wood or ivory — to go no farther — than
the Madonna of the Bossy collection, now in the Louvre
(Plate xxxvii.). Almost life-size, that is, about four
feet in height, it is of oak, and now in the bare purity
of the wax-polished wood. In it we may recognize a
chef-d'&u'ure, the ultimate realization of refined idealism
233
WOOD SCULPTURE
resulting by slow and measured steps from the archaic
hieratism of the twelfth century through the charming
aberrations of the thirteenth. There is nothing here
of the courtly type, made for the luxury of kings and
nobles rather than for churches, there is nothing of the
coquetry of the grande dame, yet there is no sacrifice
of the ideal in its appeal to the most humble also. We
may remark the unaffected pose, the fall of the drapery
concealing, yet outlining the figure, the cushion in-
dented by the weight of the body, the foot resting on
the head of a basilisk, the Child dressed in a simple
tunic playing and laughing as He turns away from
His mother, holding the end of her veil, toying — after
the favourite fashion — with a bird. If we might
criticise His figure, it is, perhaps, prematurely old,
almost too clever: a sharp youngster, even a little
tiresome. Yet it is the accepted type of the time, from
which the sculptor had no escape. We may remark
also the masterly treatment of the wrist of the Virgin
as she holds the Child's foot, and the long, thin,
delicate fingers; the feet of the Child, the crown of
natural foliage instead of a jewelled one. It is no
doubt northern work, probably of the He de France.
In fine condition, the restorations are confined to the
right wrist of the Virgin, and the fingers of the right
hand^of the Child. If there is anything to regret, it is
that it is a figure d? applique, but in a front view this
is not noticeable. The FitzHemy collection in the
Victoria and Albert Museum has a somewhat similar,
though smaller and not so well executed, group ; the
drapery is more summary, the hands not well modelled.
But if at Kensington we have no seated group in wood
so admirable, there is a charming standing figure in oak,
also French, of the same period (No. 746, 1895) (Plate
XXXVIIL). It is simply coloured, the under-dress red,
the veil blue, as was usual. The expression of the
Virgin's face has all the sweet French charm, and the
234
1. MADONNA. FRENCH. FOURTEENTH CENTURY
VICTORIA. AND ALBERT MUSEUM,
slMVA SRI.RDR/TT GROUP. FLEMISH OR GERMAN. FIFTEENTH CENTURY
VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSKUM (MASKELL COLLECTION)
PACKS Il6. 2t4.
JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA
drapery is admirably simple. The Child, with a solemn
expression beyond his years, holds a gilt globe. A
painted standing Madonna in walnut, French of the
early sixteenth century (No. 735, 1895), no doubt a rood
figure, recalls, in attitude, the Niirnberg Madonna. A
passing reference may be made to the number of
twelfth-century Madonnas in wood in the churches of
Auvergne. There was doubtless in this province a
long-continued industry, usually in oak, in this class
of wood sculpture, and of crucifixes. The type con-
tinued quite into the fifteenth century ; for example in
the Vierge noire of Molompize. M. de Rochemonteix's
work on the Romanesque churches of Auvergne may
again be referred to, on the subject of these images.
Noticing incidentally an extremely fine fourteenth-
century statuette of German origin in the Carrand
collection of the Bargello in order to remark how little,
except the type of face, there is to distinguish some
Flemish and German Madonnas of the period from
the French by which they were inspired, we may
take next one or two examples of the Italian trecento,
and quattrocento. We must be contented with a bare
mention of a standing figure of the Virgin and Child
in the Berlin Museum. It is of the school of Giovanni
Pisano, and, bearing a remarkable resemblance to his
ivory Madonna in the cathedral of Pisa, is perhaps by
his pupil Andrea, father of Nino, whose Annunciation
figures will presently occupy our attention. The reader
will appreciate the importance of these two statuettes
in the history of sculpture, and of the evolution of ideas
which connect the pioneers of the Italian Renaissance
with its later developments. One of the earliest
examples we have of wood sculpture from the hand
of a great master is the life-size Madonna and Child,
now in the museum of the Louvre, which, if it cannot
be with absolute certainty attributed to Jacopo della
Quercia himself, is nevertheless so connected by its
235
WOOD SCULPTURE
style and by the system of drapery to others of his
known works that it will be sufficient to note that the
opinions of such critics as Bode, Fabriczy, or Schubring
leave the question still unsettled (Plate xxxix.). Con-
tinuing the great traditions of the school which we
connect with Niccola, Giovanni, and Andrea da Pisa,
it is certain that amongst all the great names of those
who disdained not to handle wood as well as marble
for great sculpture, none stands more prominently
forward than Jacopo della Quercia. The group here
illustrated is of walnut, the Virgin seated and clasp-
ing the Child, who is almost entirely naked, on her lap.
The somewhat long oval contour of her face, the tender,
almost melancholy, expression, the narrow forehead,
slightly protuberant, the drawing of the eyelids and
eyebrows, the eyes themselves, the formation of the
lips, the setting on of the neck, and the style of the
draperies are details which demand careful comparison
with other works of the Sienese sculptor. Amongst
these, the most nearly related would seem to be the
Madonna of the central doors of San Petronio, Bologna,
and the Virgin of San Martino, which is entirely gilt.
There are, it is true, some not inconsiderable differ-
ences in the shape of the head, in the veil, and
especially in the arrangement of the drapery, and
some may feel inclined to depreciate our group in
wood as not good enough for the master himself,
and that it is, at best, by a very clever pupil. The
naked Child is thick-set, solidly built and muscular.
In both figures there is evidence of the rapidly in-
creasing tendency towards naturalism, towards work-
ing from the living model and the introduction of
portraiture in religious subjects. The group, as in
the case of many others of like character, was at one
time over an altar. It is fully coloured, the painting
excellent and, happily, in fair condition ; for we have
here an admirable example of the method of colouring
236
1, ANGEL OF THE ANNUNCIATION, PISAN SCHOOL. FOURTEENTH CENTURY
CLUNY MUSEUM, I'ARIS
2. MADONNA. ITALIAN. FOURTEENTH CENTURY
1 .VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM
' ' •• 'I>A<;ES 237, 252 . . • • ' .
JACOPO BELLA QUERCIA
sculpture taught by the twelfth-century monk Theo-
philus, and given to the world by Cennino Cennini in
1437, not l°ng after the probable date of this group.
The robe of the Virgin is a deep rich red, lined with
green, the upper drapery and veil of a yellowish or
light amber tint, the hair of both figures gilded, and
the orphreys and other ornaments also gilded and
tooled. The wood itself, in the accustomed manner,
has fine linen stretched over it fixed with a lacteous
cement upon which is the plaster coating for the
reception of the colour. Possessing all the fresh and
delicate features and the unaffected simplicity of the
Sienese school of the first quarter of the fifteenth
century, this group, with the earlier French group of
the Louvre, is alone sufficient to place sculpture in
wood of the finest mediaeval period on a level with
that in any other material whatsoever. The Madonna
of Jacopo della Quercia is an evidence also not only
of his following of the Pisan schools of Niccola and
Andrea, and of Giotto, but also in common with other
Tuscan artists of his time, of the influence of the more
northern Gothic schools of the Netherlands and of
Burgundy, then dominant everywhere. The Madonna
and Child of the Victoria and Albert Museum (No.
5892), again life-size and of a somewhat later date, is
one of the earliest acquisitions made in Italy for the
South Kensington Museum by Sir J. C. Robinson.
He himself, in the catalogue published in 1862, de-
scribes it as by a master unknown of about 1400-1440,
having much of the manner of Jacopo della Quercia,
the gesso priming and painting all disappeared or
removed (Plate XL!).
There are sevefal other fine examples of wood
sculpture by Jacopo della Quercia, or of his school in
the churches and public institutions of Siena and the
neighbourhood. Amongst them are a standing group
of the Virgin and Child and some figures of SS.
237
WOOD SCULPTURE
Peter, Paul, John the Baptist, and St. Antony in the
church of San Martino. They are all completely
gilded. But though the Madonna figure may be said
to be in the style of that of the Louvre, or, rather,
of the Madonna of the church of San Petronio, these
figures are not likely to be by the hand of the Master
himself. Born in the last quarter of the fourteenth
century, and working during the first half of the
fifteenth, the art of Jacopo della Quercia is dis-
tinguished by its singleness of purpose, straightforward
simplicity and elegant refinement, without a trace of
artificiality. He was strongly influenced by the school
of Niccola Pisano and the Gothic tradition, follow-
ing no doubt the methods of the Flemish and Bur-
gundian masters whose authority in his early days
was everywhere paramount. And, indeed, his style
would connect him rather with the trecentists than
with the more florid and overcharged tendencies of
sentiment which characterize the fifteenth century.
But, of course, all through the first half of the fifteenth
century the Florentine schools were still very much
influenced by Gothic methods however modified by
the naturalistic feeling which Niccola of Pisa had
been the first to borrow from other sources.
238
MADONNA AND CtllLIX BY JACOPO 3DEL.LA QXJEKCIA,
LOUVRE MUSEUM
1»AOE 236
CHAPTER XIII
ON SOME EXAMPLES OF WOOD SCULPTURE OF THE
TRECENTO AND QUATTROCENTO IN ITALY
IT would be Impossible to approach, without the
greatest diffidence, the task of attempting to
describe Italian art In wood within the limits
of a few pages. The period to which we have to go
for the best examples is one which is intimately con-
nected with the revival of art In which Italy played
so overwhelmingly prominent a part. Italian sculpture
In wood has been hitherto little known and little
studied, at any rate by English writers. There are
certain museums, such as the Museo Cimco of Pisa,
where a fair amount of fine examples is to be found,
but much is distributed in. various cathedrals or hidden
away In village churches where It has often suffered
from neglect, from unskilful restorations, and from
additions of tawdry drapery. It is but recently, in
1905, that a considerable number of interesting ex-
amples of the art of wood-carving in the Abrazzi were
gathered together at a special exhibition. Contrary
to a formerly received opinion (it may be noted that
Molinier, in his Histoire de £Art, treats the subject
very summarily, and confines his attention almost
entirely to tarsia work), the art has always been popular
In Italy, and as elsewhere has followed on the lines of
the more important sculptures in stone, marble, and
bronze. The story of sculpture in Italy is evidence
of a wide-reaching effect on the art of other countries
>39
WOOD SCULPTURE
from the dawn of the Renaissance to its full develop-
ment in the days of Michael Angelo, but in the ex-
amples which will be selected we shall find ourselves
in an atmosphere entirely different from that in which
we have been living in the case of those of the period
of Gothic art in France, in the Netherlands, and in
other more northern countries of Europe. We shall
be confronted at every step with the greatest names of
the early Renaissance — indeed, it may belaid, with all
the great names — so that comparisons with their work
as sculptors in other materials— in marble and stone,
in terra cotta, bronze, and even in majolica, would be
constantly arising. To embrace the subject with any
completeness would imply an incursus into the whole
history of Italian art of the period. It would involve
such questions as the influences exercised by the study
of antique models on the trecento schools, or, again,
the measure of inspiration from French art to be
accorded to those of the quattrocento. We might
have to discuss the position of Gothic art in Italy,
how far it was congenial to the character of the people,
and what were its relations to the older systems in
the work of Niccola, of Giovanni, and of Andrea Pisani,
who added to it the poetical naturalism which laid
the foundations of the great change which we know
under the name of Renaissance. For, as in this
book we are dealing almost exclusively with Gothic
art, we must remember that the early Renaissance
was but a development of Gothic feeling, passing by
slow degrees into an appreciation of humanism and
realism.
Owing to the quantity of available matter and to
the impossibility of treating in one chapter the whole
subject of wood sculpture in Italy, it is necessary to
make a selection, and to confine attention for the most
part to certain figure work belonging to the trecento
and quattrocento schools of Pisa, Florence, and Siena.
240
EARLY ITALIAN
These are life-sized statues representing the Annuncia-
tion by means of detached figures of the Virgin Mary
and the archangel GabrieL In their general character
they find no parallel elsewhere, and for poetic beauty
and unaffected naturalism many of them are un-
surpassed in the history of mediaeval carvings in any
other countries. They may indeed claim to rank as
great sculpture, and in addition combine the arts of
sculptors and painters of the highest rank. Some
few other examples of figure work of the same period
will also be noted, and, for the rest, the crucifixes and
Madonnas of Italian origin have already been included
in the section devoted to that part of our subject. In
earlier days and throughout the Carlovingian period,
art in Italy remained steadfastly attached to Byzantine
methods and traditions, and was always coy of the
influence of the north and consequently of Gothic
ideas. Wood sculpture was especially cultivated in
the monasteries of the south of the peninsula and
some ancient doors of the twelfth century, besides
the well-known ones of Santa Sabina still exist: for
example, those carved with scenes in the life of the
Virgin of the church of Santa Maria in Cellis at
Carsoli, the similar ones of San Pietro, Alba Fucense,
and the panels with like scenes of Sta. Maria Maggiore
at Alatri. In Romanesque times sculpture in wood had
produced also in Tuscany one of its finest efforts —
the ' Deposition ' of the cathedral of Volterra, already
noticed. The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses
four interesting columns (No. 269, 1886) each about eight
feet high, which may have been supports of a pulpit,
or as the museum label suggests, for organs. The
capitals are carved with foliage, amongst which are
human and animal figures : rude work .after decidedly
oriental models, the surfaces of the wood flat, so that
the carving is in the fashion of entaille or champlevS.
They are described as south Italian work of the
Q 241
WOOD SCULPTURE
thirteenth century, but the fashion and designs must
surely be of at least a hundred years earlier.
Of the oldest Gothic work in wood, little is known.
Vasari, in the sixteenth century, was the first to charac-
terize the great change in the systems of art of which
the earliest manifestations were made more than three
hundred years before his time under the influence of
Niccola Pisano. That influence marks the first great
movement in the rebirth of the plastic arts. It was,
in the terms which Vasari was the first to apply, the
Rinascita, the Rinascimento, the Resorgimento, the
Renaissance, as is now the accepted expression. It
was the rejuvenation of taste, and the appreciation in
the human mind of the study of the antique; the
awakening of ideas which had long remained dormant
and stagnant throughout the protracted period of
ignorance which we call the dark ages. Under the
restraints of Byzantine mannerisms, sculpture had
suffered more than any other expression of art, and
had fallen very low indeed. By a return to classical
principles, and by a systematic study of the antique,
it was destined to differentiate itself from the almost
wildly independent system by which the purely Gothic
is characterized. The picturesque and the natural
took the place of the ideal which had so long ex-
clusively prevailed, borrowing the classical formulae
and adapting them to Christian religious feeling. The
great name which we associate with these beginnings
in the middle and second half of the thirteenth century
is that of Niccola of Pisa, whom we know best perhaps
by^his pulpit of the cathedral of Siena, or by the bas-
reliefs of that of Lucca, among so many more of his
marvellous productions. It may be, indeed, that
he derived his inspiration from the old Christian
sarcophagi rather than direct from classical antiquity,
for the bas-reliefs of the Gothic pulpit of the Baptistery
of Pisa are obvious imitations of these. And it may
242
TUSCAN SCULPTURE
be that the great sculptures of Chartres, of Paris, of
Amiens, or of Strassburg, are entitled to an earlier
date. We shall find their influence in such figures as
the angel from the Timbal collection in the Cluny
Museum, which will presently be noticed. However
this may be, so far as our immediate subject is con-
cerned, Italian sculpture before the impulse given to
it by Niccola calls for little consideration. Giovanni,
his son and pupil, of whom is recorded on the pulpit
of Pisa, ' sculpens inpetro, ligno auro? carries us into
the trecento period. Another of the same patronymic,
perhaps even a greater artist than his master Giovanni,
is the famous bronzist, maker of the first great gates
of the Baptistery of Florence, and we have already
noticed a Madonna in wood which is probably his
work. Finally, and still of the trecento, we have Nino
Pisano, son of Andrea, to whom and to his school we
owe the beautiful Annunciation figures that will
presently occupy our attention, Andrea Pisano has
been called the creator of the Florentine school of
sculpture. Nino worked with him, and after his
father s der^i took his place as architect of the cathe-
dral of Ofvieto. The art of sculpture in wood in
Romanesque times had probably occupied no impor-
tant position, though we possess such interesting
examples as the * Deposition * of Volterra, but towards
the middle of the trecento it had become important
and popular, and in 1349 the Society of St Luke had
founded at Florence special schools under its protec-
tion.
Tuscan sculpture, then, begins with Niccola Pisano,
at a time when the increasing tranquillity and
prosperity of the country found people capable of
appreciating ideas of refinement and nobility of ex-
pression. The turn of Siena was not to be till some-
what later, while that of Florence, destined to be
greatest of all, was to await for the culminating point
243
WOOD SCULPTURE
of its distinction in the arts, the full quattrocentc
the fifteenth century. For it was not until the close
of the fourteenth that the great names appear of
Donatello, of Brunelleschi, of Desiderio da Settignano,
or of Ghiberti, all of whom did so much to spread
pictorial fashions in sculpture, and all of whom — if, as
is probable, we may include the last named — with such
another famous sculptor as Jacopo della Quercia of
Siena, render illustrious the art of wood-carving. Our
space will not permit us to follow the work of every
artist in detail. If it did so, we should find in the
company of those just named some others hardly less
distinguished. We should be able to illustrate by
existing examples the work of Matteo Civitali, of
Andrea and Simone Ferrucci, Baccio da Montelupo,
Niccolo Baroncelli, Michelozzo, Andrea della Robbia,
Benedetto da Majano, Neroccio, Giuliano da Sangallo,
Nanni Unghero, Giacomo Cozzarelli, II Vecchietta,
Caradosso, the Barili, Leonardo del Tasso, Andrea
Sansovino, and Andrea del Verrocchio, for the most
part Florentine of the fifteenth and early sixteenth
century, and of others of lesser note. There are, of
course, amongst these, many carvers of crucifixes, and
of Madonnas there is a wealth also. Baccio da Monte-
lupo's fine crucifix, made for the monks of San Marco,
still exists in their refectory. Many others made by
him and mentioned by Vasari cannot now be traced.
From Vasari we learn that Margaritone of Arezzo
(1236-1313) carved a large crucifix in wood for the
Santa, which was ' painted in the Greek manner/ and
four other figures in the parish church of Arezzo, and
even Giotto is credited by tradition with one in the
church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, in Rome.
Finally, Vasari himself, followed by others, has attri-
buted a crucifix in wood, in the Santo Spirito, Florence,
as a youthful work of Michael Angelo. At Ferrara, in
the fifteenth century, wood sculpture was represented
244
SCHOOL OF NINO PISANO
by Arrigo da Brabant, and by a numerous colony of
German, Flemish, and French artists. At Modena
we find such names as da Basio, da Lendmara, and
the Canozzi. It would seem that in certain districts,
as in the Abruzzi for instance, owing no doubt to
the considerable number of religious houses which
flourished there from the twelfth to the sixteenth
century, there was great activity in the art of wood-
carving. Examples of figure work of considerable
merit are still numerous in the churches at Chieti and
at Aquila. Many were shown at the exhibition of the
art of the Abruzzi in 1905.
The resuscitation of the sculptural arts in Italy
at the time of the great awakening in the thir-
teenth century, and afterwards, was aided by several
circumstances. The new spirit ran parallel with
that of the revival of literature in the age of Dante,
with a popular impulse towards mysticism which
had been fostered by the teaching of St. Francis
of Assisi, with general prosperity and increasing
luxury, and with the more free study and observation
of nature, leading to a greater refinement of aesthetic
ideals, to which reference has already several times
here been made. About the middle of the fourteenth
century the new ideas had triumphed all along the
line. We see this exemplified in the charming
Annunciation figures of the school of Nino Pisano.
We may reasonably assume that some of these delicate
works, so full of poetic feeling, are by Nino himself.
Most admirable among them are those of the museums
of Pisa and of the Cluny of Paris : most charming of
all, those which the museum of Lyon was so for-
tunate as to procure. We shall not stay to inquire
how far such things as these imply a triumph of
humanism over the symbolism and mystical ideas
which had hitherto governed art in the church, and
whether religious fervour and devotion suffered in
245
WOOD SCULPTURE
consequence. We shall take these beautiful Madonnas
and groups as we find them, purely as works of art :
sweet-smiling women of the time, in the very garments
of the age, youthful attendants or messengers sugges-
tive of the Court, babes with the chubby features and
plump soft limbs that we associate with them. It
must be left to individual feeling to discriminate
between the devotional sentiment and an appeal to the
sensual and the materialist. The time was fast
approaching when the most sacred figures were used as
a mere pretext for the portraits of anything but saintly
people, and a classically draped figure did duty as this
or that holy personage. What is unfortunately impos-
sible is to give in our monotone illustrations an idea of
the polychrome decoration in view of which these
figures were first of all prepared by the sculptor.
Allowances must be made, for here the photograph
fails. In thus confining our attention for the most
part to a certain class of figures we have also to leave
on one side the glorious choir and stall work with
which the churches of Italy abound. It would be
pleasant at least to notice such Gothic work as that of
Santa Maria dei Frari at Venice, and, even if somewhat
later than our limits in date, the charm and perfection
of the choir of San Pietro, Perugia, or the exquisite
carving in walnut of the church of St. Severinus at
Naples. But it \vould be difficult to consider the
subject apart from that of the art of colouring and
inlaying wood which we call tarsia or even certosina
work, in which Benedetto da Majano, Giovanni da
Verona, Damiani da Bergamo, and Davido da Pistoja
are, among many others, cited by Vasari.
In Tuscany especially, in Siena and Pisa, it became
the custom, about the second half of the fourteenth
century, to represent the Annunciation by the two
figures of the Virgin and the angel Gabriel, which
were not necessarily grouped together, but placed on
246
\XXrXCIATIOX FIGURES. ATTRIBUTED TO XIXO PISAXO. KOURThKXTH CEX'i'URV
MUShn CIVIC't, 1'It-A
SCHOOL OF NINO PISANO
consoles as separate statues. It would appear to "have
been an entirely new idea, corresponding with nothing
else in the plastic arts of any country, and, especially
also in their treatment, they are examples of an art of
which little, besides themselves, remains. In general
they indicate the following of the early school of
Giovanni da Pisa, and the motive and method of ex-
pression undoubtedly speedily became favourite ones.
It is, however, especially to the influence of Nino
Pisano, son of Andrea, who — as we know only the date
of his death in 1368— worked probably for the most
part throughout the second quarter of the trecento, that
we owe the chief impulse in the carving of the pairs of
Annunciation figures, of which some amongst the most
important will now be cited. They are, with one
exception, life or nearly life-size figures of the same
general type. The Virgin is represented standing,
simply clad, usually with a prayer-book in her hand,
as if disturbed by the summons of the angel : the
heavenly messenger also standing, one hand raised to
call attention, the mouth open as in the act of speaking.
In accordance with the universal practice in sculpture
of the period, they are fully coloured. The question
how far they are from Nino's own hand, and how far
they correspond with known Madonna figures by him,
is not one for which much space can now be found.
It may, perhaps, after all, suffice to say that the best
among them are strongly influenced by him, and that
they are of his school We have no certain know-
ledge that Nino himself worked in wood, though if we
consider the customs of the time and the roll of sculp-
tors already cited, it is hardly likely that at one time
or other in his career every great sculptor would not
have exercised his genius in this material ; at any rate,
up to the time — perhaps late in the fifteenth century —
when, under the new system of art, wood sculpture
would have given place entirely to marble. The most
247
WOOD SCULPTURE
enlightening reference that can be made towards
establishing Nino's participation in at least the group
of the Pisa Museum, with which others are closely
connected, is a comparison with the figures in marble
of the Saltarelli monument in the church of Santa
Caterina at Pisa. These have always been considered
as the finest creations of this refined and sympathetic
master. The tomb itself of the archbishop is his
greatest work, and according to Vasari was executed
about the year 1370. But Nino was then no longer
living, and the more correct date is 1342. The
Madonna at the top has considerable relationship with
the same artist's Madonna of Santa Maria Novella.
In the chapel of the Rosary in that church are
other two Annunciation figures closely identical with
the pair of the Museo Civico. Supino, in his Arte
Pisana, says they are without doubt by the same
hand, and illustrates them side by side. The style is,
indeed, similar, especially in the figure of the Virgin,
the drapery alike in arrangement and feeling.
In these Annunciation figures and Madonnas we
find an entirely new type of the Virgin. It is the un-
affected sweet girl — almost a schoolgirl — who receives
the salutation of the angel Confining ourselves to the
wood examples, I can see nothing that would justify
the suggestion of the French critic, M. Michel, that
Nino was inspired in any way by the small French
groups in ivory of the subject, and that he modified
these and enlarged them in marble and wood. Their
striking characteristic is their girlishness. On the
other hand the analogies with such sculptures as those
of Reims or Chartres is marked, in the attitude, the
expression, the quite classical draperies, and the general
sentiment of the Gabriel of the Cluny Museum and
the others with which it is related. What is so notice-
able in nearly all the figures of this category is the
intense emotional feeling, the full story told by two
248
ANNUNCIATION FIGURES
separate figures without any scenic adjuncts, the
dramatic aspect, the angel in the act of speaking, the
Virgin answering as it were — or, rather, expressing by
her attitude, by her whole demeanour, her carriage,
features, even such a detail as the book of prayers in
her hand, as if hastily closed — all that is passing in
her mind. Very simple, yet elegant, is the attitude in
which she stands, the shape of the head and transcript
of the features expressive of almost extreme youth,
the costume unusual yet most refined in its lines of
simple drapery falling lightly, and covering the form
down to the feet There is little or none of the undu-
lating Gothic bend of French fourteenth-century work,
except, perhaps, and that but slightly, in the Gabriel
of the Cluny and the Madonna of the Museo Civico.
The style of costume of such figures as the Madonnas
of the Lyon, Pisa, or Asciano groups is peculiar, in
the long straight falling robe, without waistband or
girdle, and with very few straight folds : perfectly plain,
and with plain tight sleeves: no ornaments or over-
mantle, no veil, and the hair very neatly arranged. If
other influences are to be traced, they would seem to
be from the refined idealism, the almost enervated
grace of Giottesque traditions, with at the same time
a suggestion of realism and portrait-like fidelity to
nature. For these figures are still truly Gothic The
reproductions given here will dispense with more than
general descriptions. The photographs must speak
for themselves, regretting only that the charm of the
original colouring must be left to the imagination.
Yet this colouring is of so great importance that it is
almost impossible to estimate the true value of the art
from monochrome reproductions. These figures repre-
sent, indeed, sculpture painted, or paintings differing
from those on plane surfaces, and if we could imagine
them as they left the hands of their creator, we
should find them to be the work of great artists in
249
WOOD SCULPTURE
both lines of art. It is true that the surface of
the sculptured wood was destined entirely to dis-
appear, yet it does not follow that sculpture takes
a secondary place. The colouring throughout of
the faces and hands, and of the patterns and orna-
mentations of the drapery, was of extraordinary
delicacy, the former painted with a light carnation, the
cheeks rose-tinted, the lips deepened with cinnabar,
the draperies richly ornamented with gilded orphreys
and edgings, sometimes raised with impasto and tool-
ings. In short, even in their present condition, except in
those cases where in later times they have been wholly
bedaubed with a uniform colour, these figures, and
other French and Italian madonnas described in an
earlier chapter, are amongst the most distinctive re-
maining of the methods taught by Theophilus and
CenninL
In the first half of the fourteenth century, sculpture
had not attained a high position and was not held in
freat esteem in Florence. Nino Pisano therefore, and
is brother Tommaso, also a sculptor, but of whose work
there is nothing of importance, had installed themselves
at Pisa and later on at Orvieto. Among the Annun-
ciation figures there are three which are usually
attributed to Nino himself. They are the beautiful
pair in the museum of Lyon, and a figure of the arch-
angel— the companion figure is missing — in the Museo
Civico of Pisa. We may take first the Annunciation
figure, and the accompanying angel, of the Lyon
collection, both of which present many points of interest
and originality entirely different from any of the other
groups, and indeed from any other known sculpture.
The group appears to have been acquired in 1887 ; it is
said, from the church of Santa Caterina. The figures
measure each almost five feet in height, are fully
coloured, and preserve to a great degree the original
colouring. The charming head of the Virgin, youth-
250
ANNUNCIATION .FIGURES.. PISAN SCHOOL. FOURTEENTH CENTURY
I. VON MUSEUM
PAGE 250
ANNUNCIATION FIGURES
ful as a girl of sixteen, Is turned to right and slightly
inclined over the shoulder, the face bearing a listening
expression of anticipation. She wears a long loose
robe without any waistband or girdle. An unusual
peculiarity is that the arms of the figure — one is un-
fortunately broken and partly missing — are jointed and
movable, as in a lay figure. This, it has been thought,
was to facilitate the clothing with real stuffs. Certainly
the dress, as it is, suggests an under-garment or neglig^
which with great skill indicates the full form beneath.
Yet such a complete figure, so elaborately decorated a
dress, could not have been intended to be ignominiously
concealed by the addition of draperies. Admitting the
possibility of a mantle being added, it is in itself the
finished production not only of a great sculptor but
also of a great painter. It would be impossible not to
recognize the master hand in the consummate treat-
ment of the carnations of the face and hands, and in
the rich decoration of the dress. The Virgin of the
Annunciation in the Municipal Museum — at one time
in the convent of St. Domenico, has much in common
with that of Lyon. It is somewhat taller, measuring
quite five feet six inches in height, and unfortunately
has at some later time been completely bedaubed with
a new red colour. The modelling of the head, the
treatment of the hair, and the style generally, are
strikingly similar to the marble Madonna by Nino in
the museum of Orvieto, The figure has the same
feeling as that of Lyon, a like elegance of pose, and
similar proportions, though the head is older and not
nearly so fascinating in expression. Possibly the
missing angel is the one now in the museum of the
Louvre, to which also is wanting the accompanying
Madonna. The arms are again jointed and movable.
The Pisa Museum also possesses a complete and more
dramatic group, attributed to the master of the works
just mentioned. The figures measure, respectively, five
251
WOOD SCULPTURE
feet nine, and five feet six in height, and though there
are traces of the original coloration it is now almost
entirely hidden beneath a coat of dirty white paint.
Undoubtedly the original face tints, and the patterns
and other decorations of the simple drapery which falls
in graceful folds to the feet, was as rich as in the Lyon
example. The hair, as was the universal practice,
was gilded. The attitudes have the French feeling of
the fourteenth century, with the Gothic bend in the
figure of the Virgin which was so common at that
period, but is here not at all exaggerated. Again these
figures invite comparison with those in the chapel of
the church of Santa Caterina, with the Madonna of
Santa Maria della Spina and others by Nino, and by
his father, whose art he continued.
We may take next the angel of the Cluny Museum
at Paris, at one time in the Timbal collection.
Closely related, perhaps, especially in the character
of the head, to the Pisan angel last noted, it has
perhaps more affinity still with the marble angel of
Santa Caterina. Nor can we help thinking of the
statuary of Chartres. With regard to the connexion
of any of these figures — not excepting those of Lyon
— with Nino Pisano himself, it would be hazardous
indeed to express a decided opinion. The most that
can be said is that they must have been executed
under his immediate influence, and that, if by one of
his most talented followers, there may have been added
to the style of the master other graceful motives
which, some may think, would have contributed to his
own fame. The group of the museum of Orvieto is of
another type which has several interesting features.
As it is not illustrated here, it will suffice to remark
the long oval head with high forehead of the Virgin,
the curious way in which the angel holds up a fold of
his mantle, his mild and sedate expression, and the
mouth not open in the act of speaking. It is the type
252
ANNUNCIATION FIGURES. PISAN SCHOOL. FOURTEENTH CENTURY
I.OUVRK MUSEUM
PACK 254
ANNUNCIATION FIGURES
found frequently on the facade of the cathedral of
Orvieto. There are other Annunciation figures and
other statues in wood in the Pisan Museum, evidences
of the long-continued influence of the school of Nino
throughout the fourteenth century, and until the Pisan
school itself fell into decadence and that of Florence
became flourishing. Sometimes there is a reminiscence
of the thirteenth century in the simple straight-folded
drapery and of the influence of the school of Siena*
The Victoria and Albert Museum has an interesting
figure of the angel of an Annunciation group,
standing six feet high, of the end of the fourteenth
or beginning of the fifteenth century. It was
acquired in Florence as long ago as 1861, and might
almost be the pendant of the Annunciation Virgin,
formerly in the Goldschmidt collection of the Louvre.
Sir J. C. Robinson's catalogue of 1862 states that both
this and the companion figure had, it was said, been
recently sold, for some unaccountable reason to a
country priest who took them to his own parish
church. Here, being found too tall for the niche for
which they were destined, the statue of the Virgin was
summarily shortened by several inches, and attempts
made to convert the Angel into another Virgin.
Resold to a Florentine Jew, Robinson acquired the
Gabriel for fifty francs. It is now entirely denuded of
the original colouring. The Louvre possesses also a
complete Annunciation pair, coming from the Bardini
collection, which has some affinity with the figures of
the Lyon Museum, and at Pescia there is the so-called
Madonna dell' Acquavino, probably of Nino's atelier.
It is figured by Stiavelli, who attributes it to Matteo
Civitali, in his LArie in Val di Nievole.
Of the Florentine and Sienese schools are other
Annunciation figures after the Pisan model. Foremost
among them all is the group of the church of San
Francesco at Asciano, for here the figure of the
253
WOOD SCULPTURE
Virgin in its charming simplicity is sweetest above any
of this type of Madonnas. Her demeanour is not that to
which we are accustomed in most of the others. There
is movement in her attitude as she stands as if enter-
ing a room, one hand upraised in astonishment at the
apparition which meets her eyes. It is again an
instance of a whole dramatic story told by two simple
figures, without any scenic adjuncts. The sentiment
differs from that ordinarily expressed. It is not one
of humility and resignation, but rather of the youth-
ful face lit up with glad surprise. The position of the
gracefully executed hands of the figures is most
expressive, both of the delivery of the message and of
its reception. The original colouring is almost intact,
and charmingly delicate are the carnations, and the
hair gilded as usual. The angel wears a white alb
with apparels and a stole over the left shoulder, lightly
knotted under his right arm, the Virgin a red and
green dress with a gold girdle. Unfortunately his
face has been repainted. Schubring thinks these two
childlike figures to be the work of Martino di Barto-
lommeo of Siena who is credited, on account of the
inscription on the base, with an Annunciation pair in
the Collegiate Church of San Gemignano. But we
know nothing of him as a sculptor, and, in any case,
nothing could be more dissimilar in style than these
fifteenth-century figures of Asciano which have all the
Gothic feeling and grace of the fourteenth century or
even earlier, and the possibly elegant and classical, but
almost pagan group of San Gemignano. The Annun-
ciation pair of the church of Corpus Domini,
Montalcino, of the Siena school of the fourteenth
century, though not without defects, and the far finer
pair of the Abbey Church of Sant' Antonio, at the same
place, are of interest amongst the series. The first two
bear inscriptions stating that they were made for the
shoemakers' guild in 1368 and 1370.
254
ANNUNCIATION FIGURES
We come now to a smaller and highly interesting
group in the museum of Berlin of an entirely different
character from those we have hitherto been consider-
ing (Plate XLV.). It is the product of the mixture of
the Pisan and Sienese and Florentine schools, of an
art which has profited by many influences, and carries
us into the fifteenth century, while preserving the
Gothic feeling and much of the characteristics of
the preceding one. The two figures, measuring each
about eighteen inches in height, are clearly — and
thi^ is most noticeable in that of the angel — due to the
School of Nino Pisano, though hardly to be immedi-
ately connected with one of his pupils. The name of
Tommaso, brother of Nino, might even be mentioned.
Differing from most of the others of this class of the
subject the Virgin is seated, the angel kneels on one
knee, the right hand upraised, as he delivers his
message. Her attitude is as if the apparition were a
sudden one disturbing her reading, and she puts down
her book on her knee and waits expectantly. The
angel is half in profile, the open hand raised to call
attention, not perhaps, as some think, holding at
one time a lily now missing. Yet there is evidence of
inspiration by the trecento schools of painting, and
comparisons may also be made with many sculptures
of that period such as the Annunciation of the
tabernacle of Orcagna or the figures of the fapde of
Orvieto. But it would be impossible to ascribe the
group definitely either to the school of Siena, which
was an offshoot of the Pisan, or of Florence, which
followed this. Some hold one opinion, some another :
some would refer it back to the mid-fourteenth, others
place it in the first quarter of the fifteenth ; some even
give it to a more northern school, perhaps Piedmontese.
On the whole, we may come to the conclusion that it
is the work of a Florentine sculptor strongly influenced
by Ghiberti, and a follower of the Pisan school of Nino ;
255
WOOD SCULPTURE
and although at first sight one might be inclined to give
it an earlier origin, the influences discernible, which are
very various, lead us to decide rather on the early part
of the fifteenth century. A seated Madonna in wood,
fully painted, of unusual type, of the Siena school of
the fifteenth century, in the church of Sant' Agostino,
has analogies with the drapery of the Berlin figure.
The Child, in this group dressed in a belted frock,
stands in a half-running attitude on His mother's lap,
His back turned to the spectator as He plays affection-
ately, one hand on her neck.
It is necessary to pass rapidly over a few
amongst a large number of Italian sculptures of
the fifteenth century which might be cited. The
first two are the work of no less a master than
Donatello, whose crucifix at Santa Croce has
already been noticed. Vasari mentions the statue of
St. John, which was in his time in the Chiesa dei
Frari at Venice, and is there to this day. Although
probably executed between the years 1453-1466, when
Donatello had completed his work at Padua and was
in the full vigour of his art, this is not a piece which
attracts greatly at first sight. The head resembles,
rather, a head of our Lord at the pillar, crowned with
thorns. Yet the expression is an appealing one. It
is 'the voice of one crying in the wilderness/ the
beckoning hand upraised. The body is clothed to the
knees with skins, with some drapery over the shoulders
and arms. The limbs are admirably chiselled, but —
allowing for the qualities of two different methods
and materials — not so finely modelled, perhaps, as
in the bronze St. John of the Baptistery of Siena.
Both exhibit the same style, both are dramatic to a
degree, telling a whole story in a single figure. So
also with that most touching and powerful, if at the
same time almost repellent figure of the Magdalen of
the same Baptistery. It is reproduced here in con-
256
ITALIAN FIGURE WORK
trast with the German conception of Riemenschneider
(Plate xii.), a conception which, .after all, is strongly
indebted to Italian precedents, however filtered and
adapted to other temperaments. Very different indeed
is Donatello's Magdalen from the later pagan nudities
with which we are familiar : the beautiful sinner read-
ing in a cave. What is insisted on here is penitence
and renunciation. It is true that the figure is horrify-
ing in its realism. The Magdalen, clothed in long
unkempt hair, is reduced almost to a skeleton. Pre-
mature old age has disfigured the once beautiful body.
The expression of the face is almost repulsive. Yet if
art is entitled to teach, it cannot be denied that a great
moral lesson is taught in such a figure, and whatever
may have been said against it by some art critics, we
may be permitted to class it among the great sculptor's
highest efforts.
An interesting figure of St. Christopher, standing
about five feet in height, was acquired by M. Eugfene
Piot at Siena, and bequeathed by him to the Louvre.
At one time in the Church of Sanf Agostino, Vasari
mentions it in his life of Signorelli. The saint is
represented as a youngish-looking man, leaning with
both hands on a long stick, or pole, after having
carried the Christ-child across the river. The bam-
bino is missing. Analogies with the character and
style of the well-known Signorelli monument have led
to the attribution of this figure to Jacopo della Quercia,
*or Jacopo della Fonte, but — though it is almost a
pure matter of conjecture on the part of M. Piot and
others — a more likely name is that of II Vecchietta,
who was a pupil of Quercia. He was above all a
bronzist, and this certainly fine figure is really after
that method. A writer in L'Arte (anno x. fasc. iiL
1907) considers it to be not at all in his style, nor in
that of Jacopo della Fonte, and proposes Francesco di
Giorgio, although few pieces of the latter's work are
R 257
WOOD SCULPTURE
known* There are two angels in bronze of the
high altar of Siena Cathedral, in which he sees
analogies. Francesco's style is of the school of II
Vecchietta, of whom also Urbano da Cortona was a
pupil. Something might be said of the treatment of
the hands in II Vecchietta's style, or of analogies
with his ' Resurrection ' and his tomb of Marino
Soccino at Siena. But nothing is more unsatisfactory
than deductions from comparisons of style in two such
widely differing materials.
Though of full sixteenth century, and perhaps
beyond our limits of date, some notice must be given
here to a beautiful statue of St. Sebastian in the
Salting collection of the Kensington Museum, which
found no place in the chapter devoted to boxwood
work of this class. It is of fig wood, standing about
three feet high, and is here reproduced (Plate xv.).
Although on a comparatively large scale, the impres-
sion conveyed is that it is goldsmith's work of a high
character, and whether or not there is absolute evidence
in its favour, it is not surprising that it should be
attributed to Ambrogio Foppa, called II Caradosso,
generally considered next to, or even rivalling, Cellini
amongst the goldsmiths of Milan. We have beautiful
things in the shape of paxes and inkstands and other
decorative objects from his hand, but I do not know
that there is any large figure work in bronze which can
be given to him with certainty.
Should we attribute a fine statue in limewood, of
St. Roch, in the church of the Annunziata at Florence
to Italian, German, or French art ? The question has
received numerous answers from the time of Vasari to
our own day. But it is not really difficult of solution.
This figure is now in a niche in the wall of the second
chapel on the left as one goes up the church. Painted
white, to imitate marble, it escapes general notice as a
figure of wood. Vasari, in his work on Technique, of
258
ITALIAN FIGURE WORK
which the first edition was published about 1550,
describes it as a miracle of wood-carving by the hand
of a Frenchman whom he calls Maestro Janni, living,
he says, in Florence, who had adopted the Italian
manner. He says of it that it is a figure of San
Rocco in limewood, life-size, with soft and undercut
draperies, preserved to his own day in the church of
the Annunziata, free from any covering of colour, and
beautiful beyond all other figures carved in wood.
We do not, of course, always take Vasari au pied de
la lettre. Granted that there is something of the Italian
maniera (it is interesting and instructive that Vasari
should notice this), iconographically we have a treat-
ment hardly in accord with Italian tradition. St.
Roch was a favourite figure in Germany as well as in
France. The drapery, with its sharp angles, the bare
knees and long turned-over boots, the downcast eyes,
the down-pointing fingers, the large close-fitting skull-
cap as in Peter Vischer's portrait of himself, all are
distinctly German. We must remember the constant
flow of German artists into Italy during their wander-
years in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
Many also settled and worked there. The name Janni
might indeed be the Italianized form of a stranger
artist — by name John — from almost any country. The
figure certainly points to the Niirnberg school, and has
in fact been ascribed to Veit Stoss. It is known, also,
that Stoss sent many figures to Italy. M. Marcel Rey-
mond, however, says that in the over-elaborated costume,
the excess of reliefs and the ' agitation ' of the draperies,
it is connected with French art of the fourteenth to the
sixteenth centuries, notably that of Burgundy.
Though late, an extremely interesting altarpiece,
with many detached figures showing Flemish or
German influence in Italy, if indeed it is not a work
of one of their sculptors domiciled in the country, is
in the Victoria and Albert Museum [No. 137, 1891].
259
WOOD SCULPTURE
It is of the pictorial kind, with figures in the round, of
plain uncoloured wood, measuring about 5 feet high by 5
feet in width. In it we have, principally, the crucifixion
with numerous figures and groups, soldiers on foot
and on horseback, the Jews and other traditional
personages, in costumes and armour of the early
sixteenth century. Nothing more is known of it, or
of its supposed author, than some particulars in a
letter from the Italian vendor in 1891. He says: —
'This carving in wood, representing the nativity and
the death of Jesus Christ, was formerly in the church
of S. Agostino at Piacenza, and is attributed to a
certain Giovanni, or Lucio, Ottivetono of the end of
the fifteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century/
I do not know that the name Ottivetono is elsewhere
to be heard of, nor does it sound very Italian. The
church of St. Augustine was suppressed by Napoleon L,
and the carving presented by the Pope to a duke of
the Farnese family. There was at one time a frame all
round it, which, it is said, has been transformed into a
bookcase in England.
In this comparatively brief notice there has been by
no means any pretension to a general study of Italian
art in wood of the periods included. Such a task
would involve many other considerations, and could
not be confined to art in one particular material only,
I have desired only to call the attention of those — and
they are many I think — who are not already familiar
with them, to some examples of a particular kind
which, generally speaking, do not find their analogies
elsewhere. Considerations of space compel also the
leaving on one side such architectural work with figures
as the. splendid _retable of , the cathedral of Piacenza,
late Gothic work of Antonio Burlenghi, many other
fine examples of Venetian sculptors in wood, and those
Gothic choirs which would otherwise form a portion of
our subject, if within our limits of style or date.
260
CHAPTER XIV
ON THE COLOURING OF WOOD SCULPTURE
THE extreme lengths, already alluded to in a
previous chapter, to which the practice of
colouring sculpture of all kinds was carried
in Spain, and continued there longer than elsewhere,
lead us to some general consideration of the subject.
When we remember that, as there has been occasion
also more than once to remark, it was the universal
custom in the Middle Ages to colour every description
of sculpture, and especially sculpture in wood, it is
evident that the question demands more than ordinary
attention. We have seen the practice exemplified in
the retables of the Netherlands and Germany, in the
single figures and groups for roods, the Madonna
statuettes and crucifixes, and in the beautiful Italian
Annunciation figures of the quattrocento and earlier.
As everything else in art, polychromatic decoration
comes to us from the East. Long ago Owen Jones
wrote in his Grammar of Ornament : ' The architec-
ture of the Egyptians is thoroughly polychromatic :
they painted everything. They dealt in flat tints, and
used neither shade nor shadow. The colours used by
the Egyptians were probably red, blue, and yellow,
with black and white to define and give distinctness to
the various colours : with green used generally, though
not universally, as a local colour, such as the green
leaves of the lotus/ The statues and bas-reliefs in
limestone, basalt, wood, and even granite were coloured
261
WOOD SCULPTURE
to life, with differences distinguishing those of men
from women, the latter having always a higher com-
plexion. Even the mummy cases were gorgeously
coloured and thickly gilded. Numerous are the refer-
ences to the practice in Holy Writ. In the Book of
the Wisdom of Solomon we find : * For neither did the
mischievous invention deceive us, nor an image spotted
with divers colours, the painter's fruitless labour, the
sight whereof enticeth fools to lust after it, and so they
desire the form of a dead image that hath no breath *
(xv. 4, 5)-
It would be interesting, if our space allowed, to
follow the question through the times of ancient Greece
and Rome, to discuss the Parthenon, the Temple of
Minerva at Athens, the colossal statues of Pheidias and
Praxiteles, the polychromatic decoration of building's,
and of statues, at Herculaneum and at Pompeii.
Socrates is reported by Plato, in his Fourth Book of
the Republic, as remonstrating with those who blamed
the painters of statues with not being contented to
leave the eyes black instead of enriching them with the
most beautiful colours. The sage remarked : * Pray,
sir, do not suppose that we ought to make the eyes so
beautiful as not to look like eyes, nor the other parts in
like manner, but observe whether, by giving to every
part what properly belongs to it, we make the whole
beautiful * (Republic, Eng. trans L, Cam., 1866). Un-
doubtedly the use of colour in architecture and
sculpture in marble was much more common than is
generally thought. The Elgin marbles have been
proved to have been painted : the great ivory and gold
statues of Minerva and Jupiter Olympius were fully
coloured. Sometimes the hair alone was gilded, or
painted yellow, and ornaments were frequently added,
the ears, for example, being pierced for rings. Very
applicable to our subject is the interesting account by
Callistratus of a bronze statue of a boy. He says :
262
COLOURING OF STATUARY
' His cheeks were tinged ruddy colour like a rose. We
marvelled to see bronze imitate nature: for though
metal it blushed/
In early Christian times the evidence of the
catacombs is alone sufficient to show that the same
feeling prevailed. Though we have few examples to
guide us, we may gather that in early mediaeval times,
down to the twelfth century, statuary, following the
most ancient principles, was painted in a most conven-
tional manner, the prevailing colour being an ochre-
tinted white. About the middle of the century the
colouring of architecture and sculpture became general
both within and without the buildings. There was
a universal call for brightness and cheerfulness
in decoration, not only appealing to the senses as
a mere gratification of them, but a use of art as a
teaching medium, compelling attention: as it were,
the advertising method of the day. And so the suc-
ceeding centuries, until the change of ideas in the
sixteenth, were essentially ages of colour and opposed
to the cold monotony of white which is the absence
of colour. The note of joyousness was abroad, and
amongst innumerable signs of this, surely it would be
sufficient to compare an archaic, grave Madonna of the
eleventh century, clad in sombre garments of a dull
uniform tint, with the sweet smiling, almost coquettish,
figure that an ivory statuette of the Virgin, of the
thirteenth century, presents to us, the draperies and
ornaments decorated with bright and lively colours
enriched with gilding.
The colour of statuary, and of all the sculptured
ornament, pervaded the whole interior of sacred
edifices. To understand properly the spirit of the
Middle Ages it is necessary to picture these great
creations as glowing with painting and gilding from
top to bottom. Even the light was subdued and
tinted, the sun's rays entering through stained windows
263
WOOD SCULPTURE
of glass, of which the secret of producing the richest
tones has been lost. If we bear this picture in mind it
is impossible to imagine that mediaeval feeling could
tolerate the white marble statuary which forms such
glaring contrasts with its surroundings in the Abbey
Church of Westminster, or the chill regularity of the
Madeleine at Paris, Above all it must not be forgotten
that the colouring of the statue or other piece of
sculpture is not to be considered for itself alone.
Everything was studied with regard to its effect in the
general scheme. Marble and alabaster, metal and
wood, were used also for sepulchral monuments, and
for these, too, polychrome was the rule. Yet they were
not treated as separate creations and placed haphazard.
In our modern Gothic it would seem to be too much
the rule to build and decorate piecemeal with no
governing plan. Things are accepted as they come in
and a place found for them somewhere.
In mediaeval times, as a general principle — perhaps
in the earlier days arising from a want of more
extended knowledge — the colours applied both to
statuary and smaller sculpture were limited to the
three primary ones : a dark red, yellow, and blue.
The great sculptures of Reims were, for example,
painted in this way. Many, indeed, were simply
partially or wholly gilded. Black was of course used,
and, Jater on, browns, purples, and violets were added.
In viewing them, as we do to-day, we must remember
how the reds, for example, lose their original strength
and brilliancy, and other colours are toned down, by
atmospheric influences. In France, as elsewhere, the
colouring of sculpture was long held in high honour.
For the three centuries during which we can point to
names — the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth— those
of Andrd Beauneveu, of Michel Colombe, and of Germain
Pilon may well serve to illustrate this side of poly-
chrome art. It was long before oil colours were used,
264
COLOURING
the medium, in general, being prepared from gums,
albumen, or other colloids. Existing documents are
numerous relating to the painting of such monuments
as the chartreuse of Dijon, its tombs, retables, and
single figures. From these much information may be
gathered regarding the methods, materials, and prices
paid. Nor is information wanting in respect to the
colouring of sculpture in the neighbouring provinces
of Flanders and France, which were in close relation-
ship with, or dependence on, the courts of Burgundy.
Not the least interesting fact that we can gather is that
Jan Van Eyck himself painted six statues for the facade
of the Hotel de Ville at Bruges, and the names of
many others of the most famous Flemish painters,
employed in a similar way, are known. The question
of their participation in the work of the carved wood
retables has already received attention in these pages.
This is a matter of considerable interest, but, together
with the subject, generally, of the polychrome decora-
tion of these works in Flanders and Germany, is one
which it would be impossible to treat adequately within
the limits of a single chapter and without the aid of
coloured illustrations. When coloured at all, no
portion of the surface of the wood remained visible.
Thick gold was used also as a means of accentuation,
the backgrounds almost invariably richly gilded or
diapered, and the gildings burnished. It was a
common practice also to gild the hair and beards of
the figures.
The colouring of Madonna figures and groups and
of crucifixes has also been noticed in their several
places, and the system being everywhere identical need
not again be considered at any length. Gold was
the dominant in the scheme which blended the colours
into harmony. So general and universal was the
practice that the natural colours of wood were not
permitted to assert themselves. Bronze, and even the
265
WOOD SCULPTURE
precious metals, did not escape, and we know how
beautiful was the colouring of mediaeval ivories. In
general terms it is impossible not to recognize the
immense influence in these times of the art of the
Netherlands through its painters. In the fifteenth
century they seem to have given the word of command
to the whole of the rest of Europe. Not even Italy
can be excepted, and if Italy is mentioned in this
connexion it is with a full recollection of the Annuncia-
tion groups of Pisa, of Florence, and of Siena, which
have been noticed in a previous chapter, and of much
else also that it has been found necessary to pass over.
The application of colour to other materials, such as
the terra-cotta reliefs and busts of the period, must not
be forgotten, and even the majolica chefs-cF&uevre have
their relation to our subject. In common with all
these the great names of Brunelleschi, of Donatello, of
Benedetto da Majano, of Nino Pisano, of Jacopo della
Quercia — to name no others — are equally connected
with the colouring of wood sculpture.
Painting on reliefs differs, of course, from painting
on plane surfaces. It has rules of its own. There is
always the natural play of light and shade of which
advantage can be taken. Thus, two colours, or tones
of equal value, can be placed side by side ; for example,
a blue and a purple. In the thirteenth century art of
all kinds tended towards naturalism. Conventional
methods gave way before increased knowledge and
powers of observation. Painters learnt to make use of
such aids as reflected half-tones, or processes such as
we now call scumbling, and other methods of giving
brilliancy to their scheme of coloration.
Later on they were not afraid of stronger contrasts ;
for instance, a rosy tint against a deep blue, a light
green and dark purple. But there was always the
danger of commonplace trickery, and the colouring of
sculpture generally, in the later days of Gothic art,
266
POLYCHROMATIC EFFECTS
losing the quality of the earlier methods, became in
some countries — in our own for example, as certain
rood-screens will testify — garish and vulgar. But
degeneration in taste in this respect was universal
when the intervention of great artists was no longer so
easily obtainable. For, if allowable at all, it must be
admitted that the polychromatic decoration of sculpture
is a branch of art which demands a special training and
the highest talent.
So great have been the changes in the interior
of churches and in the disposition of the ornaments
and sculpture of all kinds which we still possess in
them that it is not easy to imagine the effect pro-
duced when the edifices were first completed and
adorned, when every detail from a vestment or even a
censer, to the light which filtered through the storied
or jewelled windows, had a studied effect in the general
harmony. Possibly all was not due to design alone,
and some allowance must be made for the natural good
taste of the time. Yet the mediaeval master of the
works had doubtless more supreme authority than the
architect of modern times, and his aim was to accentuate
the lines of the building, and to give special prominence
to those portions which were richest in sculpture. He
used his flat surfaces in general harmony with the rest,
filling them with painted histories for the instruction of
the people who could read in no other way. And as
time went on, he learnt to know the value of materials,
such as the different woods and their varying tones
which have a colour of their own, contributing without
additions to the polychromatic scheme. The modern
architect is satisfied with the introduction of pictures in
glass admitting as much light as possible, and indeed
we can hardly feel certain that in our northern climate
the effect produced by the marble facings, inlays, and
mosaics of such an edifice as the cathedral at West-
minster is not as far as we can go. Yet the climate
267
WOOD SCULPTURE
was the same in the Middle Ages, and therefore it is
possible that we do not realize completely how the
polychromatic decoration of exteriors, as well as of
interiors, was actually carried out.
It may be objected that the choirs of Amiens, Ulm,
and so many others of the great cathedrals, with their
stalls and canopies, thrones and sedilia^ were left
uncoloured and in the purity of the unstained wood.
It may have been so in general, perhaps, but we see
them to-day after the lapse of centuries and among
altered surroundings. Nor do we know for certain
how the wood was treated. Certainly such great
expanses of newly carved surfaces would not have been
tolerated. No doubt a considerable amount of relief
was obtained by colour and gilding. The carved
screens and fronts which remain of the rood-lofts which
abound in Devonshire and the West Country were
elaborately painted and gilded, so that not the smallest
part of the surface of the wood was left clear. Traces
of colour still remain on some bench-ends, and even on
misericords in England. Of recent years many of the
restored screens have been repainted and gilded, though
not in all cases, perhaps, judiciously. But, as a rule,
this has been done in accordance with the remains of
colour still happily left. The mediaeval practice may
have been abused, but the remedy under the classical
Renaissance was worse. With the departure of colour
went also the joyousness of life amongst the simple
inhabitants of the villages, the fervour of the devotion
and the attachment to their churches. And whatever
may have been the other contributory causes, it would
seem that the period of the Renaissance synchronized
with the loss of the good taste possessed by the people
which had hitherto made of every man an artist and a
craftsman. Art was henceforth for the learned and the
wealthy.
In mid-fourteenth century and during- the first
- 268
COLOURING OF STATUARY
quarter of the fifteenth the polychromatic decoration of
sculpture was general in Germany as elsewhere, but less
the absolute rule in certain districts than in others. At
the end of the fifteenth, in the flourishing times of the
schools of Niirnberg, Wiirzburg, and Suabia to which
so much of our attention has been directed, it would
seem probable that a considerable number of the great
retables were never intended to receive decoration in
colour. And when we consider the perfection of finish
in such a group as the fragment in the Victoria and
Albert Museum, with the figures of SS. Anne and
Joachim, it is difficult to imagine that the aid of the
painter could have been called in for an addition which
would completely change its character. We may
sincerely hope that it was not, for the sculptor's art of
the time was on an immeasurably higher level than
that of the painter — whether identical with him or not
— employed to colour such work. At any rate the
taste of to-day will be more than satisfied to find it in
its present condition. So again with the Niirnberg
Madonna. This and the Pieta in the Marienkirche
have for many years been covered with a uniform
coating of a dull olive colour which is not altogether
unpleasing. The artist's intention may have been to
complete these figures in polychrome, but we have no
means of determining whether this was carried out or
not. Modern copies of this Madonna are frequently
coloured with the most deplorable and disastrous
results. The coloured statues in stone and wood in
Catholic churches are, indeed, as a rule, beneath
criticism. Happily, exceptions occur which show that
a careful attention has been paid to the delicacy of
treatment which characterizes the best feeling of the
thirteenth century. That the colouring of figure
sculpture is not altogether a lost art, an instance may
be given in the stone statuettes of the altarpiece in the
Hammond chapel of the Abbey church of Downside.
269
WOOD SCULPTURE
Some mention will be made in a succeeding
chapter of the sepulchral effigies in wood, of which we
still possess in England nearly a hundred examples.
Dating from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century,
the aid of the painter and illuminator was, in every case,
called in, in accordance with the general practice.
Monochrome was, as has been shown, disliked. Sculp-
tor and painter worked together, nor would it be easy
to say which was subsidiary to the other. In the
wooden effigies the groundwork was first of all pre-
pared by cementing linen over any cracks or faults
there might be in the wood, applying a coating of size,
and next a pretty thick layer of a composition of
parchment, glue, and whiting, forming a smooth
surface for the reception of the colour and gilding.
The coating was sufficiently thick in places, where
required, to admit of modelling, after the manner of
gesso work, and capable of being impressed or tooled
with dies and stamps and raised for gilding and
jewelling. As was the practice elsewhere, the grounds
for gilding were also often first of all treated with bole
Armenian. This has the effect of giving transparency
to the gold, which was liberally applied, mixed with
white of egg; left matt, or burnished with an agate.
In this manner the details and ornaments of the
armour, the crowns, sceptres, sword - hilts, spurs,
orphreys of vestments, jewels, and other accessories
were raised, chiselled and goffered with the richest
effect How fine this painting was in some of the
English effigies may. be gathered — to offer but one or
two examples — from the figure in stone of John de
Sheppy, Bishop of Rochester, in Rochester Cathedral.
He lies with precious mitre on his head, the hands
covered with the embroidered episcopal gloves, in full
Gothic red chasuble, and maniple, of rich design, lined
with green, and bordered with a gold orphrey, the
thinner dalmatic of an equally beautiful pattern, and
270
COLOUR IN CHURCHES
under it the silken tunicle, and alb with embroidered
apparels, the sandals, and finally, beneath his head, the
two cushions of rich pattern and colouring. Or, again,
there is the effigy of Bishop Bronescombe (1280 A.D.)
in Exeter Cathedral. Unfortunately, in the case of the
greater number of the wooden effigies, the merest traces
only of the original polychromy remain, and many
have suffered the degradation of successive coatings of
whitewash or paint — sometimes sanded, with the idea
of imitating stone or marble, and of bringing them
into accordance with the singular taste in ecclesiastical
art of the last century.
In our own country we can find innumerable
instances of the prevalent practice of colouring sculp-
ture both in stone and wood. We can point as
examples, among many others, to the minstrel gallery
of Exeter, to the Lady Chapel of Ely, the chantries of
Salisbury, of York, of Gloucester, or of Winchester,
and for exterior sculpture, to the west front of Wells ;
and the restoration of the numerous village churches
which has been undertaken in recent years shows how
they glowed with colour and gilding from the angels
supporting the hammer-beams of the roofs to the
elaborately carved wood screens and rood-lofts. Not
unfrequently — perhaps as a rule — the removal of the
horrible ochre wash on the walls has revealed gigantic
pictures of St. Christopher and other legendary figures.
This has recently occurred at the village church of
Poughill in Cornwall. Undoubtedly the whole of the
interiors was a blaze of coloured illustration, the walls
themselves a Biblia Pauperum in the most attractive
form.
In the fifteenth century, especially, the polychrom-
ing of sculpture reached its utmost limit. It may not
be without importance to notice that at the famous
chiteau of Gaillon, of which we still possess such
remarkable remains of sculpture not only in marble
271
WOOD SCULPTURE
and stone, but also in wood, French and Italian
artists worked together for the Cardinal d'Amboise.
There is documentary evidence that, so lately as the
beginning of the nineteenth century, the carved wood-
work of the chateau still retained its original colouring.
Nor was the practice less general in France throughout
the reign of Francis L, despite the strong influence of
Michael Angelo, For it was in measure owing to
this great sculptor — as later on in our own country
the influence of our most renowned architect contri-
buted to the destruction of the Gothic which he
detested — that is due the definite disuse of the poly-
chromatic decoration of sculpture. And it was the
restorers of churches of Wren's time who first started
the practice of whitewashing them. With the Renais-
sance— at any rate after the sixteenth century — the
colouring of sculpture was practically a prescribed
art. It was considered vulgar, and imagined — but
wrongly — to be opposed to the canons and practice of
the classical art then so much admired.
Nearly all Italian marble sculpture is, as we now
find it, uncoloured. But close examination would
show that originally in very many — perhaps in the
majority of cases — the contrary was the case. The
statues and statuettes, busts, and bas-reliefs in
marble, wood, and terra cotta of Donatello, of
Rossellino, of Verrocchio, of Desiderio, and of other
great names of the Florentine and Sienese schools,
were, in countless numbers, coloured and gilded, in
parts if not wholly. In wood we have already con-
sidered many Annunciation figures and crucifixes.
There is, indeed, little occasion to labour the question.
What is necessary to insist upon is that the practice,
up to a period which might be definitely stated, almost
amounted to a rule without exception. The French
critic, M~. Courajod, has not hesitated to say that, in
the first half of the fifteenth century, in Italy, the two
272
METHODS OF COLOURING
arts of painting and sculpture so jostled each other,
so trod on each other's toes, that in a number of
instances painting was sculpture painted, and sculp-
ture was painting sculptured. In general, the system
was followed which had been so elaborately and
quaintly laid down in the treatises of Theophilus or
of Cennino Cennini, so that we can verify the pro-
cesses from the Schedula diversarum Artinm of the
twelfth century work to the Libra d'Arte of the
fifteenth. The general preparation was for centuries
the same as that which was therein taught. The wood
was covered entirely or in places, and principally in
the draperies, with linen prepared with a cement made
from boiled shreds of parchment or from cheese.
Over this was applied a layer of fine plaster of a fairly
thick consistency, well smoothed and made still thicker,
and raised where required, for modelling in details of
ornaments. The rest was the work of the painter,
often, as in the case of such figures as the Annuncia-
tion groups of Pisa and Lyon, a great artist. Tools
were used, dies in circles, nail-heads, stars, and other
devices for the diaperings and other ornaments.
Sometimes a particular artist may be recognized from
these: for example 'the master of the tulip/ whose
name is not known. In the condition in which we
now find these beautiful figures the action of time has
harmonized and softened down the original brilliancy
of the colours, especially the reds, and subdued, per-
haps, the over-gilding. Sometimes, as in many
Italian, Flemish, and Spanish figures — for example
the St. Stephen in the museum at Kensington — the
whole figure is thickly gilded on a ground of bole
Armenian, except the flesh-tints, and perhaps the
linings of the draperies, which were usually blue or
green. Often the edgings and orphreys of vestments
had inscriptions running down their lengths, or thick
pastes ir* imitation of brocade, and the gilding diapered
s 273
WOOD SCULPTURE
in pointilld. Or, instead of gilding, silver leaf would
be laid on the wood covered with a transparent layer of
varnish, coloured pink, blue, or green, with an effect of
translucent enamel.
Nowhere more than in Spain has the colouring of
sculpture been carried to greater lengths, and nowhere
else is to be found so remarkable a history of the
development of the system, its spread at the time of
the Spanish Renaissance, and its degradation in the
days of decadence. The story can be taken up at a
comparatively early period if we may accept, for
example, the painting of the sculpture of the cathedral
of Santiago de Compostella as contemporary with the
completion of the building in 1188. The rage for
colouring every description of sculpture was extended
even to such things as the great silver-gilt and
enamelled reliquaries, of which the one containing the
head of St. Valerius, made in 1397, is an example, or
the silver statuette of St. George in the chapel of the
Palacio de la Diputacidn Provincial, at Barcelona.
For the polychroming of retables, and ^e statuettes
and groups appertaining to them, a numerous body
of workers was employed under the direction of the
master builder. There were the imagineros, or figure
sculptors, the encarnadores or flesh painters, estof adores
or painters of stuffs, gilders, damasceners, and other
assistants. Amongst these the director, or principal
artist, was the encarnador. Some coloured statues in
stone of the end of the thirteenth century, now in the
museum at Leon, are evidence of the influence in the
northern provinces of France and her schools on archi-
tecture and figure sculpture which continued to be
dominant until the middle of the fifteenth century.
Not yet, however, had French artists been introduced.
In the fourteenth century the peculiarly Spanish system
of colouring begins to assert itself strongly : a system
which is characteristic for many centuries. The seven-
SPANISH METHODS
teenth-century statuette of St. Catherine from the
Maskell collection, now in the museum at Kensington,
is a fine example of these methods, difficult to explain,
in which the grounds of the draperies are prepared by
fine alternating bands of gold, yellow ochre, Indian
brown, and indigo, modifying the prominence of the
gilding, yet without losing any of its rich effect
Undoubtedly the Spanish colourists borrowed freely
from the practice of their Mussulman conquerors in
the arrangement of tones and colorations in the
Moorish faience, and from such monuments as the
third mirhdb of the cathedral of Cordova.
The process termed estofado may, generally speak-
ing, be taken to mean the preparation of the surfaces
to be treated before painting and gilding, especially in
its application to draperies by the laying of colour on
a gilt ground and tracing on it * estofadoj fine designs.
In wood figures the carving is executed in a somewhat
summary manner, for though the decorator must
have a perfectly smooth surface to work upon, the
wood itself is destined to disappear under successive
layers of white and varnishes. The estofador worked
with the dorador : gold on colour, colour on gold, the
patterns applied to the metal with roulettes, punches,
and other tools of the kind, giving to the representa-
tion of stuffs and tissues, in this manner, the shimmer-
ing, scintillating effect of rich damasks. The southern
temperament of the Spaniard, still further influenced
by oriental associations, revelled in such rich displays.
In the early days the ensamblador or trazador was the
architect in chief, and had under him sculptors,
draughtsmen, decorators, master carpenter, and master
mason, but not the painters, gilders, and estofadores.
The imagineros were the sculptors, who worked from
the designs supplied them by the trazador, the encar-
nadores were the flesh painters, the estofadores the
painters of stuffs or draperies ; the encarnadores rank-
275
WOOD SCULPTURE
ing higher than the last named. The doradores were
the gilders. With the proper tools the layer of colour
on the ground of gold was traced through so as to
expose the metal ki parts, thus forming the designs of
the stuffs to be imitated, at the same time that divers
effects of tonality could be produced. Reliefs were also
applied on the dead gold ground, the term estofar
implying the method of representing rich stuffs and
damasks, so that the saintly personages should be
clothed in the most magnificent garments. Francisco
Pacheco, in his Arte de la pintura (1649), gives long
details of all the methods of polychroming sculpture,
with recipes for colours, varnishes, gilding, and the rest,
and almost a treatise on the then vexed question of the
respective merits of highly polished and matt effects.
In the seventeenth century, when painting in Spain
acquired a national and individual character, the system
changed. Draperies were copied from nature, and real
stuffs used instead of painting, pushing the practice of
imitative realism to the last extreme. Figures of the
latter kind are known as imagines de vestir, and no
doubt the practice, common to this day, had an early
origin. An image, said to have been given by St.
Louis of France, is in the Capilla Real of the cathedral
of Seville. Jointed limbs and mechanism to move
them are frequently to be found. Yet although the
artist had sometimes little more to do than the paint-
ing of the face and hands, the greatest ones did not
disdain giving their assistance, and the colouring of
the flesh received as much care in details as a miniature
portrait. If the chisel were wielded by a Montanez,
a Roldan, or a Nunez, an Alonso Cano, a Pedro da
Mena, or a Pacheco, the talent of the sculptor was
supplemented by his skill as a painter. The painter
Geronimo Garcia collaborated with the sculptor Miguel
Garcia, nor are the names of Murillo or Valdez Leal,
amongst others in the first rank, to be omitted. Of
276
PASOS
Cano, as a sculptor, we possess fewer examples in
wood than in stone. Amongst the former are the life-
sized crucifix of the high altar at Valencia, a little
St. Antony in the church of St. Nicholas, at Murcia,
a St. Bruno in the Cartuja of Granada, and a seated
figure of Elijah sleeping, his head resting on his hand,
in the church of Santo Thome at Toledo, The last
named is more probably by Becerra. In the Victoria
and Albert Museum there is a group in painted terra
cotta attributed to the school of Cano, which is much
in the style of the Elijah. Whatever may be the
measure of our admiration for this style, concerning
which there is room for difference of opinion, we may
take the group as very fairly illustrative of Cano as
a wood sculptor.
Pasos are the groups of figures representing scenes
in the Passion, often larger than life, which, to this
day, are favourites in Spam and carried in processions.
They are frequently of the exaggerated realistic type,
with real stuffs glued on, and eyes of glass and enamel :
horrible pieces of anatomy, with gaping wounds and
other evidences of torments, in which the passion for
realism and of truth in art is pushed to its ultimate
limits. Yet many still existing are the work of
Montanez, who made several for the different churches
of Seville, which are still used in the Holy Week
ceremonies. Others, at Valladolid, are by Gregorio
Hernandez (1566-1636) and Juan de Juni (cL 1586), at
Murcia by Salcillo. There is one in the Victoria and
Albert Museum by Risuefio, a pupil of Cano. Some
dispute seems to have arisen in the seventeenth century
with regard to the relative merits of the painting of
sculpture in general, and on the question of matt or
polished surfaces. Pacheco, the father-in-law and
master of Velasquez, in his Arte de la pintura, abuses
the 'vulgar enamellers.' 'What audacity/ says he,
1 have those who say that painting on a plane surface is
277
WOOD SCULPTURE
the culminating point of the arts, and that, as to paint-
ing the flesh of a statue, they could do it better with
their feet than the specialists could with their hands I '
Though of late date, a short mention must be made
of Gregorio Hernandez. Born in 1566, he is con-
sidered, by M. Paul Lafond, as one of the purest glories
of Spanish sculptural art. There is a Mater Dolorosa
by him in the chapel of La Cruz, Valladolid (not men-
tioned, however, by Lafond), which in the opinion of
many is his ckef-cFceuvre. Unfortunately, as in the case
of so much other church statuary in Spain, it is made
ridiculous by the additions of monstrous crowns and
draperies. We may not like, perhaps, the tears of glass
encrusted in the wood, but, after all, such methods
have ancient authority, and from the accounts which
have come down to us, were practised by Pheidias
or Antenon Amongst the very few examples of the
work of Spanish wood sculptors in the Victoria and
Albert Museum, is a curious small relief attributed to
Berruguete, representing St. Sebastian. The whole
of the exposed parts of the body of the martyr, and of
the little angel who accompanies him, is covered with
seed pearls arranged and tinted so as to suggest actual
flesh. The drapery and other adjuncts are sprinkled
with powdered glass and minute fragments of coral and
tinsel It cannot be denied that in this work, which
shows great labour and ingenuity, there is also art
of a kind — indeed, of considerable merit But one
hardly knows how to characterize it or what to think
of it.
CHAPTER XV
WOOD SCULPTURE IN ENGLAND IN THE THIRTEENTH,
FOURTEENTH, AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES-
COFFERS, CHESTS, AND PANELLINGS— SEPUL-
CHRAL EFFIGIES AND SMALL FIGURE WORK
IF we look at a map of the English dioceses in the
twelfth century, such as Mr. Edmund Prior
gives us in his History of Gothic Art in
England, it is impossible to help being struck by the
astounding activity displayed in the building of
cathedrals, of abbeys, and of magnificent parish
churches in those early days of the revival of the arts.
Starting from the south and progressing towards the
north we find — to name but a few only — Salisbury
(1130), Ford Abbey and Wimborne (ii45)> Bristol
(1150), Wells (1170), Glastonbury (1185), Gloster
(1170), Lichfield (1190), Shrewsbury (1180), Canter-
bury (1175), St. Albans (1200); and, in the north,
York, Kirkstall, Fountains, and many more. The
succeeding century was the golden age of English
Gothic. Henry in., on his accession in 1216, rebuilds
Westminster Abbey, Lincoln is completed, Wells and
Salisbury also. To add to our astonishment we may
remember that the whole population of England at
that time amounted to less than three millions.
Doubtless these magnificent edifices became treasure-
houses of sculpture of all kinds. The fabrics them-
selves, so far as the architectural sculpture in stone
is concerned, are still open to our admiration. But
279
WOOD SCULPTURE
of the wonders of gold and silversmiths5 work, of
enamelled and jewelled shrines, of embroidered vest-
ments, and all the profusion of ecclesiastical ornaments
which the inventories we possess testify to have
existed, hardly a trace remains even in our museums
and private collections. After the great period of
unexampled activity there may have been one of
quiescence. When we remember the scanty population
of England, and the consequences of such inflictions
of plague as the Black Death of 1368, we must take
into account also the unquiet state of the kingdom,
which called many to arms. There were the Crusades,
and the troubles with Scotland, the invasions of
France, and finally, in mid - fifteenth century, the
Wars of the Roses, at the termination of which, thirty
years later, under Henry vn., tranquillity was restored.
Prosperity reigned again, and the king, bringing over
Torrigiano and other foreign artists, gave a fresh
impulse to church decoration. And, notwithstanding
the destructions and alterations they have undergone,
the choirs and stall-work of numberless of our churches
can still show, also, that there were native carvers of
excellent skill and taste. The later designs were
perhaps furnished by the introducers of the new
fashions, but in deviations here and there, and in
special national characteristics, there is manifold
evidence of English workmanship. We shall note
this when we come to consider the screen-work of the
West of England.
Other nations have suffered from invasions and
from the horrors and impieties of revolutions, but none
more than ourselves from icanoclasm in the name of
religion. The small number, then, of existing examples
of images and of decorative work of all kinds in such a
perishable and intrinsically valueless material as wood
is hardly to be wondered at- For English figure*
sculpture we are left very much to conjecture. No
280
ENGLAND
doubt the art of wood-carving followed the same lines
in England as in France and elsewhere, and we may
safely conclude that at a period when Gothic art had
reached its highest development, and was characterized
by extreme refinement, England was capable of holding
its own with any other country. The invasion, in
force, of foreign artists was not until later. For if the
stone-carvers could design and execute such richness of
arch and pillar, niche and gable as we find, for one
instance only, in the west front of Wells, and could
cover them with admirable statuary, it would not be
surprising that equally in wood they should fill with
figures the elaborate choir-work and rood-screens which
adorned every cathedral and parish church. Yet in a
general way it is not, perhaps, improbable that the
English mediaeval craftsman in wood was more dis-
tinguished as a hucher than as an image maker, and
that either the foreigner was called in to work, and
perhaps to settle in this country, or that considerable
importations were ordered from abroad.
In the few examples which remain to us there must
be always some little difficulty in distinguishing original
native work from the imported, from that copied from
other sources, or made in the country by foreign artists,
themselves influenced by the surroundings in which
they found themselves. There must always be a
distinct difference between the work which such im-
ported- labour produces from its own genius and that
which it forms under the direction of native artists or
to suit the tastes of its employers. There was, of
course, much copying. Designs from foreign examples
were repeated over and over again, modified or slightly
varied, making it difficult to be accurate as to dates or
origin : for example, in the microscopic piece of wood-
carving in the Waddesdon collection of the British
Museum, which is there labelled as English of the
thirteenth century, The striking characteristic of
281
WOOD SCULPTURE
English work is its solidity and thoroughness, sugges-
tive of the national character — contented with what is
sufficient, correct, plain-speaking, with a certain severity
and heaviness of structure, and timid of giving an
impression of showing off. As in other sculpture there
would probably have been more analogy in the thir-
teenth and early fourteenth centuries to the French
than in the fifteenth, when a misapplication of Flemish,
and a multitude of other foreign influences, brought
about a more expansive style, tending to the extravagant
and even vulgar. There is a want of invention — a
fondness for repetition as in the rows of similar figures
of angels, or of other figures under canopies. Yet
Gothic art was peculiarly adaptable to English senti-
ment, and predominated amongst us long after its
absolute disappearance everywhere on the Continent,
except, perhaps, in Germany.
Unfortunately, with the exception of the rood-
screens, bench-ends, and font-covers ; of the wooden
sepulchral effigies, and of some isolated chests and
fewer images, which escaped the searching destruction
of probably innumerable fine examples, the material
with which we have to deal is meagre indeed. We
have to gather what light we can from old chronicles
and inventories, and in these there is often ample
evidence of a wealth of carved work in wood. In the
Rites of Durham we read of the ' Nine Altars ' in the
cathedral, and are told that ' all the foresaid nine altars
had their several shrines and covers of wainscot over-
head . . . having likewise between every altar a very
fair and large partition of wainscot with fine branches
and flowers and other imagery-work most finely and
artificially pictured and gilded, containing the several
lockers or aumbres for the safe keeping of the vestments
and ornaments/ There was the great shrine of St
Cuthbert also, ethe cover which drew up being of
wainscote, having on the top from end to end most fine
282
DESTRUCTIONS IN ENGLAND
carved work cut out with dragons and other beasts
most artificially wrought/ There are references again
to many other 'al merles of fine wainscot with little
images, very seemly and beautiful to behold/ And,
once more, we are told of the monks' pews or carrells
in the cloisters, * very close, all but the forepart which
had carved work which gave light in at their carrell
doors of wainscot/ We may take it that the term
' wainscot ' refers also to tabernacle work in the fashion
of the Flemish and German retables, and that these
also, either of native work or imported, abounded in
our cathedral and parish churches. From the same
interesting book we learn also of the ' picture of our
Lady, so called the Lady of Boulton, made to open with
gymells from her breast downward. And within the
image was wrought the image of our Saviour, marvelous
finely gilted, holding betwixt his hands a fair and large
crucifix all of gold, the which crucifix was to be taken
forth every Good Friday, and every man did creep into
it that was in that church as that day/ The image was
of the kind which we now call Vierge ouvrante. A
few examples in wood still exist on the Continent
The destruction of images in England in the six-
teenth century was so complete that in all probability not
a single saintly figure of importance in carved wood
could now be found throughout the length and breadth
of the land. In order to understand the character of
the finer work which must have existed, we have little
to guide us except a reference to the images in stone
which, for the most part in a mutilated state, still cover
the west fronts and gateways of our cathedrals and
collegiate buildings. Here and there also, in a niche
on a country church tower, there may be a Madonna
figure which has escaped complete destruction through
being almost out of reach. Of the better class in wood
there is one example in the fourteenth-century Piet&
which was found a few years ago at Battlefield, Shrews-
283
WOOD SCULPTURE
bury. Unfortunately it is in an extremely dilapidated
condition. Still we may gather sufficiently to make
sure that in its polychromed state it was no doubt
not only a noble group, but absolutely English in
style and execution. There still remain, on some
benches in parish churches, such as the magnificent set
at Wiggenhall in Norfolk, or the somewhat similar
ones at Walsoken, Cambridgeshire, several unmuti-
lated figures in the panels of the ends or supporting
on either side the massive poppy-heads. And, indeed,
it is to the poppy-heads of bench-ends, though they
are but too frequently defaced and mutilated, that
we have to look for the most interesting remnants of
English figure sculpture. For example, at Chesterton,
a monk bearing a scourge stands in the centre of the
foliage work ; at Stowlangtoft it is a preacher in
surplice and skull-cap, with his open book on the desk
before him ; at Chesterton, again, a man in tunic and
characteristic headdress of the time of Richard n. ;
at Gresford a charming Madonna figure, and in very
many cases Annunciation groups or figures of angels,
archangels, and seraphs. We may be helped also by
the ivory statuettes of the Virgin and Child, of which
there are several beautiful examples in the Victoria
and Albert Museum and in continental collections.
More, indeed, of these are probably of English origin
than has yet been recognized. In addition there are
many figures in alabaster which are known to be
English, and are, perhaps, more representative of
English style in figure work than anything else we
possess. The exhibition of alabaster work organized
in the present year by the Society of Antiquaries is
especially enlightening. Many are magnificent not
only as sculpture, but for their polychrome decoration.
Amongst them, the beautiful Annunciation figure of
the tomb of Thomas Boleyn at Wells (A.D, 1450) is of
the truly English type of face, strongly influenced
284
ENGLISH MEDIAEVAL ART
by the art of the Netherlands. Documentary evidence
is abundant also of the wealth of carved figure work
in stone and wood which must have existed through-
out the land. To take but one case, the instructions
for the adornment of Eton College Chapel, the details
of which are fully set out in the ' Kynges own avyse,' or
so called will, preserved at Eton. The reredos of the
high altar was to consist of figures in full relief, carved
and coloured, * a grate ymage of our Savyoure with the
xij Apostles y sett on every syde of the same ymage,
with synes and tokenes of here passion and martir-
dome/ and there are particulars of many other figures.
The roodloft was to be made ' in like manner and
fourme as be the stalls and rodeloft in the chapell of
Saint Stephen atte Westminster/ which was itself copied
from Winchester. This loft is expressly stated to be
used 'for redying and syngying and for the organs
and other manere observance there to be had after the
Rewles of the churche of Salisbury.' We may read,
too, of the stately shrine of ' Our Ladye of Walsing-
ham,' which drew multitudes of pilgrims from all
parts : the image of wood, as Erasmus describes it, ' a
little image remarkable neither for size, material, nor
execution.7 In the privy purse expenses of Henry vm.
is an entry in 1511 of an offering made at the shrine,
at the king's visit, of jgi, 35. 4d. In 1538, by the
same king's orders, the image was brought to London
and there burnt at Chelsea, with others, as notable,
from Ipswich, Worcester, and Willesden, in the
presence of CrumwelL
Or, we may turn to but one of our many magnificent
cathedrals and parish churches whose choirs, after many
vicissitudes, show us now, through the more reverent
care of recent times, something of the semblance of that
which they presented in the days of their full glory.
In the cathedral of Lincoln there are, besides the
magnificent architectural work of the canopies and
385
WOOD SCULPTURE
other adjuncts of the stalls themselves, the misericords
beneath the seats, than which, for design and execution,
no finer set exists in England: or, it might even be
said, in any other country. Amongst them, and most
remarkable indeed for spirited drawing and equally
capable talent of the carver, one represents a knight in
armour who, struck by an arrow which still sticks in
his back, falls headlong from his horse. On another
corbel-bracket a knight, completely unhorsed, lies pros-
trate on the ground. In both cases it was no mean
artist who designed and executed the figures of the men
and their steeds, which afford us also such valuable
information regarding the habits and costumes of the
time. On again another misericord, incomparable are
the truly English angels who swing their censers as
they stand on the foliaged volutes which spread out on
either side of the central subject. Not less remarkable,
indeed, are the designs and handling of these volutes,
or supporters, when confined to purely foliage work
without the addition of any figures or storied imagery.
And when we consider the dearth of imagery which
confronts us, we may congratulate ourselves on still
possessing the charming series of panels which, equally
with those in the spandrels of the architectural work,
entitle the choir of Lincoln to its well-known appella-
tion. On these are ten or a dozen large figures, in
rather high relief, playing on musical instruments : on
harps, on various kinds of lutes, on a zither, on a fiddle
of quite modern form, on a portable pipe organ, on a
drum and the rest. They sit on low seats each beneath
a pointed arch, their serious faces sweet in expression
under the flowing hair carefully arranged and bound
with a fillet, the well-modelled bare feet showing in
every case, the draperies admirably disposed, with no
sign of mannerism or exaggeration of the folds, the
attitudes elegant and in perfect conformity with their
several occupations. They are indeed simple chefs-
286
LINCOLN
d'czuvre. Other panels bear figures of kings seated
and crowned, of a similar style, and no less fine in
drawing and workmanship. Finally, we have in this
same choir a series of quatrefoils enclosing figures of
saints, grotesques, weird Bestiary animals and little
scenes, such as a knight creeping stealthily along with
drawn short sword and shield for his defence, amongst
other figure work equally deserving of individual
attention. If even we omit to add to the above,
detailed mention of the variety and imagination dis-
played in the massive carved bosses of the groinings,
and in the poppy-heads of the stalls, all characterized
by the same excellence of design and execution, it may
be said that in this one cathedral alone these remains
are the pathetic testimony that our country could not
have been behind others in the arts of the hucher and
imaginator in wood sculpture, and that Lincoln, in the
time of its glory and of the almost inconceivable rich-
ness of its treasures of which we have evidence in its
inventories, must have been distinguished above all for
the excellence of its woodwork.
The story of the insensate destruction, the contempt
and hatred of things previously held sacred, has often
been told. A few references will suffice to recall
attention to this. Parish registers and churchwardens'
accounts give us the history pretty plainly, especially
in the twenty years from 1550 to 1570. One record of
the county of Lincoln sums up the enumeration as
1 the rest of the trash and tromperie wch appertaynid
to the popish service/ Altarstones, fonts, and other
pieces of stonework were broken and defaced, turned
into cistern bottoms, set into fire-hearths, or used for
mending walls, or laid in the highways ' to sarve as
bridges for sheepe and cattail to go on/ books and
illuminated manuscripts were torn up and the vellum
used for haberdashers' measures ; ' some to serve their
jaykes, some to scoure their candlesticks, some to
287
WOOD SCULPTURE
rubbe their bootes : sold to grossers and sopesellers,
whole ships-full sent over the seas. I know a merchant
man bought two noble libraries for 405. : kept him in
gray paper ten years' (Whitaker's Cafk. Com., n.
P* 355)- What wonder that an ample provision for fire-
wood was welcomed in numberless images and screen-
work of wood ! In Worcester Cathedral candles and
ashes were still hallowed till 1547, ^ut in the same
year the first step was made, in the order to destroy all
images. In the following year, ' creeping ' to the cross
is abolished, and the old books burned. In 1551 the
high altar was removed in accordance with the in-
junction to have plain tables of wood everywhere.
Under Edward vi. all images which had been abused
with pilgrimages were ordered to be taken down and
destroyed. On zyth November 'at nyghte was pullyd
downe the Rode in Powles with Mary and John with
all the ymages in the churche. Item, also, at that
time was pullyd downe thorow alle the Kynges
domynion in every churche alle Roddes with alle
images and every precher preched in their sermons
agayne alle images/ Archbishops and bishops made
strict inquiries. Thus Archbishop Grindall in 1576,
' whether your roodlofts be taken down and altered, so
that the upper part thereof with the soller or loft be
quite taken down unto the crossbeam and that the said
beam have some convenient crest put upon the same/
In the ' Rites of Durham/ we read that ' two holy
water stones were taken away by Dean Whitingham,
and carried into his kitchen, in which stones they did
steep their beef and salt fish/ And in 1650 that ' when
the Scots were sent prisoners from Dunbar and put
prisoners into the church they burnt up all the wood-
work, in regard they had no coals allowed them/ In
the first year of Elizabeth the high altar, roodloft, and
images were again taken down, and ' on the eve of St
Bartholomew the day and morrow after were burned in
288
VANDALISM
Paules churchyard, and in some places the copes, vest-
ments, and altarclothes, books, banners, sepulchres,
and roodlofts were likewise committed to the fire and
so consumed to ashes/ Under the Commonwealth
soldiers were quartered in Westminster Abbey, where
1 they brake down the rails about the altar and burnt
it : they brake doun the organ and pawned the pipes
for ale : they put on some of the singing men's surplices,
and in contempt of the canonical habit ran up and
down the church: he that wore the surplice was the
hare, the rest the hounds/ In the churchwardens'
accounts of 1566 of the parish of Bel ton, near Grant-
ham, we find ' Imprimis a roodloft taken doun and
part of it given to poor folkes and other parte occupied
about the mending of the pinfold yeates and the
churchyard yeates/ At Croxby ' Roode Marie & John
were burned the last yere (1565) to make a plummer
fire which mended ye churche leades/ In other cases
* to make barres and railes for a bridge ' : to ' make
window frames/ ' a weaver's loom/ ' a well poste and
such like things/ ' doors and chests/ ' a Joyce tree for
a chamber ' and ' bed ceilings ' : of a sacring bell they
made ' a horse belle to hang at a horse's head * : ' of a
holy water vat of stone our vicaire hathe made a
s wines' trough of/
In quite recent times, that is, in the nineteenth
century, vandalism, neglect, and bad taste worked still
more havoc on what remained. Mr. Waller, writing in
1845, says that the Horkesley wooden effigies were
recently displaced and put out of sight in a corner near
the porch. In Quarendon Chapel, near Aylesbury, in
the chancel among a heap of rubbish, lay the fragments
of the alabaster effigies of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley
and his lady. Brasses were torn up and allowed to lie
about. In 1839 St. Margaret's, Westminster, was
rotting with damp and neglect. These are but samples
of a state of things which might bt multiplied to any
T 289
WOOD SCULPTURE
extent. Then came what was called ' restoration/
which worked worse havoc still, for the effects are still
before our eyes. We might indeed think better of
some architects, with distinguished names, of those
days, if there had remained no ancient material at all.
There is one division of the art of working in wood
in which England excelled above all other countries.
This is in the magnificent timber roofs which still
adorn many of our country churches and some of our
cathedrals. But it is a subject which would require
special and lengthy treatment. There are very fine
examples throughout England. To recall but a few
haphazard, we have St. Stephen's at Norwich, St. Mary's
at Devizes, Westminster Hall, St. Mary's at Bury St.
Edmunds with its many figures of prophets, apostles,
saints, and whole length figures of angels, Warmington
(Northants), Lincoln, with its elaborate bosses, Selby,
Crosby Hall, Hampton Court, the painted wood groin-
ing of the choir of St. Albans, or the magnificent roof
in Irish bog-oak of St. David's — even a list would fill
pages if we should mention but the parish churches of
the counties of Devon and Somerset. From mid-
thirteenth century, and in the reign of Edward in. and
his successors, the use of wood for roofs became more
general owing to the greater security of the times and
the disuse of fortresses. They were, as in the case of
other work in wood, imitative of stone sculpture. In
the thirteenth century Henry in. ordered for St.
George's Chapel, Windsor, a wooden roof, ' like the new
work at Lichfield, to appear like stonework with good
ceiling and painting.' Carpenter's work was, in fact, to
continue long dependent on the mason. Roofs and
screens were imitations in wood of existing stonework,
with its vaultings, groinings, and traceried fenestrages.
And we must not forget the painted panels of honour
over the roods in Devon : usually a blue ground with
elaborately carved ribs, and bosses of stars picked out
290
ANGELS
in gold and colour : or the entire ceilings of a similar
kind, which abound in the churches of small provincial
towns, as for example at Shepton Mallet. Besides the
more elaborate ones, very numerous are those of the
simple parish churches such as we find throughout
Devon, with their cofferdams of the waggon roofs,
brilliant with colour, and the angels of the hammer-beams
and wall-plates, sometimes rudely carved, and roughly
painted in white albs and bearing shields. Most
•curious and richly carved and painted were the bosses
at the intersections. There are dozens of them of large
size and ponderous weight, thrown in a heap at St.
Saviour's Cathedral, Southwark. We may class and
compare them with the misericords of the choir stalls.
And, again, everywhere abound the typically English
angels, sometimes simple village work, at others, of
real merit as sculpture, as at Cullompton and Ewelme
(Plate XLVI.) or at Lincoln: bearing shields with
emblems of the Passion, or in later times, with coats
of arms.
No doubt such figures as the angels were to a great
extent a commercial production, turned out to pattern
by the hundred. But the motive is characteristic of
fifteenth-century English art, and patterns ordered from
some famous workshop or renowned sculptor of the
towns were probably copied more or less intelli-
fently and well by the untrained village artist in the
uilding of his own church in which so much pride
was taken. So it is that we find them frequently
hovering, as it were, among the roof timbers, or
capping in rows the cornices of parcloses and screens,
as, for example, in the charming series of crowned ones
bearing scrolls in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, along
a cornice at Exeter, or along the top of the parclose
screen at Cullompton. At Cawston and Wymondham
in Norfolk the angels are of large size, spreading their
broad wings eight or ten feet* across. Best known,
291
WOOD SCULPTURE
perhaps, of all are the angels in the spandrels of the
' Angel choir ' of Lincoln. But they may not properly
be called English, nor are they of wood. Stone carving
apart, if the English carvers in wood loved this angel
motive, what they could do in the way of demons is
illustrated by those of the bench-ends of Ashcombe to
which reference is made in a succeeding chapter.
The angel figures at Ewelme, Oxfordshire, are twelve
in number, attired in tunics or cassocks with collars
and girdled surplices. Their wings are spread, and all
are crowned with fleur-de-lis crowns. But among them
four are seraphs, in the close-fitting costume of feathers,
resembling tights, which — coming from the East —
seems to have been a representation especially favoured
in England. Seraphs or angels of this kind are
frequent on bench-ends, either on the panels or among
the foliage of the poppy-heads. Angels figure upon
those of South Brent and Swavesey, amongst numerous
others which might be cited. At Southwold a pair of
very beautiful angels support on their outstretched
wings a small projecting gallery. A stall-end in
Chester Cathedral has on it a quaint Annunciation
froup, in which the Virgin and an angel in the tight-
tting feather dress kneel on each side of a vase hold-
ing lilies. On bench-ends at Warkworth and at
East Brent, the angel is attired in a similar fashion in
Annunciation groups, and on a fine bench-end at
St. Mary's, Haverfordwest, the archangel, so clothed,
with uplifted sword stands on the dragon. An example
of pure village work, from Hatherleigh, is included in
our illustrations. But the whole subject is one which,
as regards England alone, would well repay a lengthened
study.
Coffers and parish chests belong, strictly speaking,
rather to furniture than to that divison of woodwork to
which our attention has been especially directed. To
appreciate properly their value as specimens of carving
292
CHESTS AND COFFERS
would entail, also, more space than it is possible now
to devote to them. Although we should find on them
from time to time very interesting examples of figure
work and of bas-reliefs of a similar character to those
of the joitdes and stalls, and the like, still, as a rule, we
should have to consider them as panels and panelling
generally, and, from the point of view of the mullioned
architectural tracery and flamboyant fenestrages, which
are so frequently used, we should be led into side paths
further than our present limits will allow. There are
also the questions of their form, construction, and
origins, and of the variety of the patterns of the panels
amongst which that known as the linen pattern is not
one of the least interesting. Our remarks, therefore,
must be confined to a few considerations, only, to
accompany the two illustrations here given. The chest
or coffer was the principal object of domestic furniture of
the early Middle Ages, and was made to serve all kinds
of purposes : as a coffer for storing garments or valu-
ables, a table, chair, bench, and even bedstead ; some-
times, when of large size, a standing wardrobe. Bakut,
or hiiche, is the frequently recurring French term in old
documents, whence we have the trade of the hucher —
furniture-makers who separated as a corporation from
the master carpenters of architectural work about the
end of the fourteenth century.
Without taking into account ancient Egyptian
coffers of which specimens in sycamore, acacia, tama-
risk, cedar, and other fragrant woods abound, the
oldest existing examples of this piece of furniture are a
sort of long trough or box with a lid, roughly chipped
out of the trunk of a tree — the dug-outclass of ^ hutch
as we may call them. Examples are not lacking in
most museums, and, indeed, are to be found of dates
so late as the fourteenth cdxtury. Of this hollowed
tree-trunk kind, often bouncr and clamped with iron,
we have in English country churches not a few still
293
WOOD SCULPTURE
existing specimens. They are not seldom of con-
siderable dimensions (the one at Cudworth, Warwick-
shire, is ten feet long and of great thickness), the
cavity itself very small, and there are frequently slits
for money. In an inventory of goods belonging to St.
Mary's, "Warwick (A.D. 1464), there is a quaint reference
to their cumbrous form : ' Item, in the vestry e, i grete
olde arke to put in vestments, i olde irebounde cofre.'
An early example, carved with subjects — amongst others,
birds, beasts, and human figures — is in the cathedral of
Terracina, and has been ascribed to the ninth, or even
eighth century. It is probably a much later copy of
some Oriental models.
As there has already been occasion to remark, most
furniture of the Romanesque and Romanesque-Gothic
period was decorated in low relief, incised in the champ-
lev<6 manner. But, for our chests, there is little to go
by, as there is no existing piece earlier than the twelfth
century. The scarcity of any kind of Gothic-English
work in wood has already been noted, although, doubt-
less, much was made, for statutes exist of the time of
Richard m., prohibiting, in the interests of the native
industry, importations from abroad. Of the thirteenth
century it is not surprising, for reasons that have
already been shown, that there should be a penury of
examples of decorated work. On this account the
specimens of this most useful — and, for that reason,
longer preserved — article of furniture of the period
named, which still remain in our cathedrals and
churches to the number of over a hundred, are the
more valuable. Of these, with regard to the con-
struction and method of attaching the lid, we may
distinguish two groups — the pin-hinge style and the
strap-hinge, and these peculiarities are useful to note
in cases of dating. Shortly stated, in the pin-hinge
method the top bars attached to the ends of the lid,
and rising with it, are fastened by pins passing
294
CHESTS AND COFFERS
through tenons to slots in the back posts, the tops of
the latter being rounded so that the lid-rails slide
easily over them. It is not found In English examples
later than the thirteenth century, and not in any of
those with panel fronts decorated with tracery. Some-
times the chests have a false bottom, or secret compart-
ments with lids, as in sailors' or old-fashioned school
chests. Of these early English chests made for church
purposes, one of the best known, and probably the
earliest, is the one at Stoke d'Abernon. As was
usual, it is of oak, of very plain and somewhat
unusual form (something like a pedestal writing-table),
with a simple incised decoration of three circular
ornaments of a geometrical pattern. These curious
whorls or roundels of chip-carving, with starlike or
geometrical patterns, are found, again, in the fine
fourteenth-century chest of Faversham Church in
Kent. The motive is, of course, derived from the
East, and from the intercourse with Syria at the time
of the Crusades. The six-pointed star, so often met
with in the ruins of the magnificent religious edifices
of that province, and in small work, such as the ivory
caskets of the Veroli kind, is itself derived from still
further east. The Stoke d'Abernon chest has an
ingenious secret cavity. The date is probably from
r 200 to 1 220.
It was not until the fourteenth century that the
practice began of forming the fronts of chests by a
framework enclosing a number of panels, carved as
a rule with traceried fenestrages, or with the linen
pattern. Others, as in the case of the fine Alnwick
chest, have no traceried decoration, but are carved
with hunting subjects, all of a secular character.
Or, again, there is that most beautiful oak coffer at
Brancepeth Church, Northumberland, of the perpendi-
cular period carved with tracery, foliage, and chimeras.
May not this, however, be due to a Flemish hand or
295
•WOOD SCULPTURE
importation? Other English chests, however French
in inspiration, are undoubtedly of English execution:
Chests of the thirteenth century with figure subjects-
are, of any country, excessively scarce. The famous
coffer of the Cluny Museum, formerly in the Gerente
collection, is doubly interesting on this account, and if
not of the thirteenth it is certainly not later than the
first quarter of the fourteenth century, if the shoulder
pieces of the armour, which went out of fashion about
that time, are a criterion. On the front panels are
twelve armed knights standing in niches beneath early
ogival canopies. One bears on his shield the leopards
of England. The subjects on the end are of rather
a free character. English chests of the fourteenth
century are to be found in many of our churches.
They are, naturally, of the florid style of the time.
Among fine examples are those of Alnwick, Brance-
peth, Hacconby, Huttoft, St. Peter's at Derby, Wath,
St. Mary Magdalen at Oxford, Chevington, Faversham,
and Rainham. The term * Flanders chest ' is one
which frequently occurs in wills and inventories prior
to the fifteenth century. There is no space now to
discuss particular instances, or in what cases so many
of our parish church chests may be of Flemish origin.
The fine example at Dersingham, Norfolk, with the
angels and emblems of the Evangelists is a typical
one of which the English workmanship cannot be
doubtful. A more difficult question is involved in
the origin of the chest in York Minster and the panel
of similar style (Plate XLVII.) in the Victoria and Albert
Museum. In other cases may we not consider the fact
of so many Flemish artists having become domiciled
amongst us ? The district around Southwold appears
to have been particularly favoured by them in the four-
teenth century. But in the two just mentioned we
may reasonably see a Flemish origin. There Is a
similar design on the chest at Ypres, a similar story,
296
i, I'ANKL OF C1IIOHT, KNC1MSII OK FUCMIKH. KOURTKENTH CKNTURY. VICTOKIA AND AI.HISKT MVSEUM
«.!. CIIKST. KUKNt'H. KIF'I'KKNTir CKNTTUKY. VICTORIA AND AI.IIKRT MUSEUM
:J. r.MKST. KRKNC'H1' KIKTEENTH CKN1URV, IN TUB Ai'Tiutu's I-KSSKKSION
CHESTS AND COFFERS
spiritedly treated, yet almost childish in perspective :
and, as in the York and Kensington chests, the same
tumbledown Gothic buildings, conventional trees re-
calling those of early Christian sculptures, the same
naive representations of many episodes in the story of
St. George and the Princess all in one picture, the
horrible dragon being slain or captured in one portion
arid in another docilely following the princess with
quite an engaging smile on its face; the same little
animals scurrying into their holes in fright, and the
kings and queens, with their crowns on, looking out
of the windows in true miniature style. We may
note that in the Kensington panel the subject is
exactly reversed from that of the York chest. What
may be the reason of this, what might be deduced
from the circumstance, which is the earliest in date,
and whether either or both are English, are questions
not easy to determine with certainty. Mr. Roe in his
Ancient Coffers and Cupboards is persuaded that they,
with the Ypres chest, are English in design and
execution. Judging from the large number of
mediaeval examples of this most useful article of
furniture, which still exist in churches and in public
and private collections, there must have been an
enormous output of worked panels, decorated with
figure subjects, with window tracery, linen pattern,
and every other known description of ornament —
intended to be worked up into choir-stall panels,
panelling of rooms, coffers, dressers, wardrobes, beds,
alcoves, sedilia and for innumerable other purposes.
Doubtless, many that we now find on the fronts of
chests and elsewhere had already been used under
other conditions.
The beautiful linen or napkin pattern, which was
so much a favourite on chests and coffers and for
panelling generally from the early fifteenth century
and for perhaps three centuries afterwards, lent itself
297
WOOD SCULPTURE
to an almost indefinite number of variations. Of
French, or Flemish origin, it came to England about
the year 1500. The conception of the idea has been
variously accounted for. According to Viollet-le-Duc
it was often the practice before the fifteenth century
to cover wood panels with parchment or with linen
stiffened with glue. As this covering got old and
torn it shrunk and became unstuck in parts, and the
edges crumpled up. The wood-carvers from this
accident evolved the idea of an ornamental motive
and a method of thickening portions of the panels.
The earliest example known to him was in a small
fourteenth-century armoire in the church at Mortain.
Others see in it a suggestion from mullions flattened
out : others, again, that it was developed from simple
champfered lines and that it went on developing with
all sorts of exaggerated complications and differences
till it was metamorphosed out of existence. It is more
than likely that the first idea proceeded simply from
the folding of a length of cloth, such as a tablecloth
or other linen which the chests themselves were made
to contain, backwards and forwards without allowing
the different folds actually to meet and overlap. In
this manner they form a number of ridges and furrows
or grooves suggesting ogee mouldings, the upper and
lower edges indicating the arrangement of the pleats
with a certain symmetrical regularity. In its simpler
forms no more charming and refined design for orna-
ment could be imagined, resulting in a restful play of
light and shade alternating and undulating in swell
and hollow, which is not the least of its attractive
qualities. There is, perhaps, no special English
variety, but we meet in old houses numberless
specimens of every kind. In the case of our own
country the subject is one which would be more
properly considered in dealing with the fine examples
of English panelling of Tudor and Jacobean times.
298
CHESTS AND COFFERS
Amongst them would be conspicuous those of such
great houses as Aldermaston Court, Abington Hall,
rowhurst Place, the Vyne at Basingstoke, Knebworth,
and Haddon Hall, and literally hundreds of others
could be named. But Aldermaston alone would
require a book to itself.
Chests and coffers are attractive also in other ways,
Many, besides their own simple elegance, are remark-
able for the charming forged ironwork of the bands
and lockplates, and are examples of the arts of the
smith, of workers in engraved and embossed leather, and
of the painter. Finally there is their historical interest
and the thought that these venerable objects have for
centuries been the receptacles of the most treasured
archives. And, again, the early ones especially, testify
to their use as offertory chests for the collection of
alms for special purposes such as the Crusades. In
the year 1200, under Pope Innocent IIL, a general
mandate was issued for setting up these offertory
chests. 'To this end we command that in every
church there shall be placed a hollow trunk, fastened
with three keys, the first to be kept by the bishop, the
second by the priest of the church, and the third by
some religious layman, and that the faithful shall be
exhorted to deposit in it as God shall move their
hearts their alms for the remission of their sins, and
that once in the week in all churches mass shall be
publicly sung for the remission of sins, and especially
of those who shall thus contribute/
There is a class of figure sculpture in wood which
until recently has received very little attention. Few
people are aware that there still exist in England
nearly a hundred sepulchral effigies for altar, or table
tombs of a similar character to those in stone, marble,
alabaster, and bronze. A list of early references to the
subject will be found under Sepulchral Monuments in the
Bibliography appended to this volume. An account of
299
WOOD SCULPTURE
these effigies, considerably longer than pressure on our
space now permits, had originally been prepared for the
present work. In the meanwhile an admirable mono-
graph by Mr. A. C. Fryer,1 who has collected all the
available information on the subject, has appeared, and
the reader may now be referred to this for details of
the various figures. These effigies are scattered
amongst various counties from Yorkshire in the north
to Devonshire in the south, the most prolific districts
being in Northamptonshire and the eastern counties.
The identification of the personages represented is, in
a large number of cases, by no means certain, nor can
we be sure of dates or even periods. Roughly speak-
ing, if we exclude the figure at Gloucester, which has
been supposed to represent Robert Courthose, there
are perhaps ten or a dozen dating from the thirteenth
century and about forty of the fourteenth. Then, with
the exception of two or three which may possibly
belong to the fifteenth, the remainder are all later than
the early sixteenth, at any rate they did not again
become common until about 1550, when the exhaustion
of the Derbyshire and Northamptonshire alabaster
quarries probably caused a recourse to a less expensive
material. The last of all are the Oglander effigies in
the parish church of Brading, Isle of Wight, which
date from the second half of the seventeenth century.
In accordance with the universal practice the
mediaeval sculptures were coloured, and, as the traces
of the old colouring show, where still remaining, often
in a most beautiful style. The remarks in other parts
of this book upon the polychroming of statuary apply
equally to these and need not now be repeated.
Particular references to the subject generally and to
those which have been repainted in later times will be
found in Mr. Fryer's work. One of the earliest effigies
1 Wooden Monumental Effigies in England and Wales, By A. C. Fryer.
1910.
300
SEPULCHRAL EFFIGIES
— a priest in a chasuble, at Clifford, Hertfordshire —
of the thirteenth century (Plate XLVIIL), is extremely
valuable as an example of ecclesiastical costume and of
the treatment of drapery in sculpture of the period, and
a very beautiful one is the early fifteenth-century figure
of Catherine, Countess of Stafford, in Wingfield church,
Suffolk.
The thirteenth century in England, as elsewhere,
had been a period of the highest refinement in the
cultivation and practice of the plastic arts, and of a
lavish display of magnificence and of material wealth.
Sepulchral figures were of marble or alabaster, the
draperies simple and usually gilded only in the
orphreys and other decorative portions. The same
elegance and simplicity would have applied to those in
wood. Then there succeeded a mixture of materials
and a lavish use of colour. These composite figures
were painted and gilded and even completely covered
with plates of silver and bronze, with rich enamelling,
on a core or carved model of oak, as we find in the
effigy of William de Valence at Westminster. Effigies
of wood, alone, then appear to have become common,
and these also were covered with gesso and elaborately
painted and gilded.
As in sepulchral monuments in other materials our
wooden effigies comprise not only figures of knightly
personages, but of their wives also. Of the latter
there are, in all, perhaps about a score examples of no
small value in regard to the costumes of the period.
There are priests and bishops and secular ecclesiastical
dignitaries at Canterbury, at Greatham in Durham, at
Little Leighs, Essex, and at All Saints, Derby. The
single example of the law is the effigy at West Down,
Devon, whether it be that of William Donne, chief
baron of the exchequer in the nineteenth year of
Edward in., as was long supposed, or of his brother
judge and contemporary, Sir John Stowford, who died
301
WOOD SCULPTURE
about 1372, In the sixteenth century not only the
effigies themselves but the whole monument, with a
canopy and other decoration, were made of wood as
in the case — a very beautiful one — of Sir Alexander
Culpeper at Goudhurst in Kent, Oak was, naturally,
the wood in general use, but we find elm and chestnut
also. An examination of the figures shows that it was
the practice to make them lighter by hollowing them
out; and to dry the wood and perhaps to dry the
colouring also, they were filled with burning, or
partially burnt, coal. Remains of this still exist in
some cases. In accordance with universal practice the
whole work was elaborately painted and gilded, the
gesso raised in parts for tooling and jewelling, the
colours thin and flatted, and the gilding deadened and
usually on an ochreous base. Many of these figures
have since been painted white to imitate marble or
alabaster. For this reason the fact that they are of
wood frequently escapes attention : for example, in the
case of the effigy in St. Saviour's, Southwark. Not-
withstanding the carelessness and impiety of succeeding
ages, we are fortunate in possessing as many as we do
(about ninety or a hundred) of these figures, no less
interesting than their companions in other materials.
And we may remember that the neglect which has
overcome some of them, and the destruction of many
more, are due to events and causes subsequent to the
Reformation, for a proclamation of Elizabeth in 1560
expressly forbade the ' breaking and defacing of tombs,
and the effigies of kings, princes, nobles, or of any
others set up for the memory of them to their posterity/
Here are records, each in his own village church, of the
knight who fell fighting in battle in the Crusades, or —
yet always in his knightly armour — who died peacefully
at home. Here, inscribed, is handed down to posterity
the story of their deeds of valour, or of honours, of
their ambitions, of their charities. Here is the simple
302
SEPULCHRAL EFFIGIES
prayer in always the same set terms addressed to the
passer-by to pray for the soul of the person represented.
Perhaps there is hardly anywhere else in England so
late an example as in the effigies of the fifth Earl of
Westmoreland and his three wives at Staindrop (the
last being his deceased wife's sister). He died in 1564,
but the tomb was made in 1560, and bears inscribed
round the edge : * All you who come to the churche to
pray a Paternoster and a Crede for to have mercy of us
and all our progeny/ In the case of Sir John Savile
at Thornhill, Yorks, who died 1529, the knight lies
between his two wives on a wooden altar-tomb bearing
shields of arms, and this curious inscription in Gothic
characters : * Bonys emong stonys lys here ful styl —
Qwylste the sawle wanderis were that God wyl. In
Anno D.M. millesimo quingentissimo vigesimo nono/
Here are men and women dressed in the costumes
of times long past, with their jewels and ornaments
upon them. These are valuable details in the history
of costume. They are not always free from anachron-
isms. In some cases, it may have been before, in
others some years after death, that the monument was
set up. It can scarcely be doubted, also, that in all
figures of this kind, of whatever material, there was
wholesale shop- work, kept t in stock and ordered from
London, York, and other great centres. There would,
again, have been copying, and perhaps using figures
made at an earlier date, though none would have been
ordered from abroad as is the case with brasses. The
wooden effigies before us are unfortunately almost
completely restricted to the noble and ecclesiastical
class. Of lesser personages, of the yeoman who
worshipped in the village church, and of his dame, of
the wealthy woolstapler or other prosperous merchant
we have but three examples, but they are interesting
ones. The first is at Eaton under Haywood, Shrop-
shire, in civilian costume, wearing a long gown and
303
WOOD .SCULPTURE
close-fitting hood. The second at Much Marcle,
Herefordshire, has a long, tight-buttoned tunic to the
knees, a hooded cape over the shoulders, is cross-
legged, and the feet rest upon a lion, the tail of which
curls round the left foot. The figure, Mr. Fryer tells
us, is considered by Mr. James Wood, who had access
to the manuscript histories of Herefordshire in the
library of the Benedictine cathedral priory at Belmont,
to be the effigy of Sir Hugh Helyon, removed from
Ashperton, to the new chantry chapel about 1414.
The identification is, however, extremely doubtful.
The third is a civilian, with his wife, at Little Baddow,
Essex.
There is always in these as in similar effigies in
other materials a pathetic interest and even a kind of
universally recognized symbolism. The knight, in the
fashion which is peculiarly English, often lies not
absolutely still, but as if in life, one leg bent, the hand
unsheathing the sword, ready, as it were, to start up.
We have a particularly strong example of this in the
effigy at Chew Magna (Plate XLVIIL). In the case of
ladies there is something homely in the dog which lies at
his mistress's feet, often an obvious pet dog which even
yet looks up into her face. Neglect, restorations, and
repainting have, unfortunately, worked havoc amongst
these figures. Even when — as there is evidence to
show — the original polychroming still remained fairly
intact, it was considered that they would look far better
masquerading as stone or alabaster. At Banham the
effigy of a knight of the early fourteenth century was
painted and sanded so successfully that a writer in
Notes and Queries says that it ' now looks almost as
well as stone.' In the beginning of the nineteenth
century the splendid tomb with the effigies of three
members of the family of Games of Aberbrain and their
wives, on three tiers of oaken beds elaborately carved,
painted and gilded, in the church of St. John the
304
SEPULCHRAL EFFIGIES
Evangelist at Brecknock, was removed. The well-
known and indefatigable antiquary, Theophilus Jones,
speaking of this monument in his History of the
County of Brecknock (1809) says: 'Only one female
figure remained when this vile incumbrance was re-
moved ; the rest were burnt by the Commonwealth
soldiers ; much as I deplore the outrages they committed,
I have often lamented while it continued that they did
not destroy the whole of it. Lord Camden has, how-
ever, with great propriety, lately caused it to be taken
down and the chancel decently and uniformly painted/
The mutilated figure of Elinor, wife of Thomas Games,
now alone remains. Churchyard, in his poetic descrip-
tion of The Worthiness of Wales (1587), after noticing
the tomb of the family of Walters, goes on :
1 Cross-legged by him, as was the auncient trade
Debreos lyes, in picture as I troe
Of most hard wood, which wood as divers say
No worms can eat, or time can wear away.
A couching hound, as harrolds thought full meete
In wood likewise lyes underneath his feete.1
It would be difficult to say whether the practice of
making monumental effigies in wood was peculiarly
English. I know no references to the subject in any
foreign publications. We have it on Mr, Albert
Hartshorne's authority that in reply to his inquiry,
Mr. Hefner von Alteneck, whose name carries such
weight, informed him that not one now exists in
Germany. Mr. Fryer says that there is a wood effigy
to an ecclesiastic of Hildesheim, and one to an English
priest in the cathedral of Burgos. The fine figure in
wood in the museum of the Louvre, and called there a
figure tombale d'un moine chevalier is here reproduced
(Plate XLVIIL). And, in the Muse6 des Arts D&oratifs,
Paris, there is a very beautiful life-size figure of a girl,
fully coloured and gilt It has been placed on the top
of a Florentine cassone, with which it has no relation-
u 305
WOOD SCULPTURE
ship. At one time in the Bardini collection, it is said
to have been bought at Faenza. Of the first half of the
quattrocento, it would appear to be the work of an
artist of considerable talent — perhaps of the Sienese
school — inspired by the beautiful figure of Jacopo della
Quercia's Ilaria del Carretto monument in the cathedral
of Lucca.1
We may now take, as further illustrations of English
mediaeval figure work — deficient though they may be in
numbers and importance — the few examples to be found
in our national museum at Kensington, which are there
labelled as English. The first is a half life-size late
fifteenth-century group of the curious Holy Family
kind so common in Germany and Flanders, and known
as Anna selbdritt (No. 37, 1887) (Plate XXXVIIL). At
one time in Mr. William Maskelrs private chapel at
Bude, the principal figure, seated on a faldstool under
a canopy, is some thirty-six inches high. The Virgin
holds the Child, who in the usual way turns over the
leaves of a book on her knee with one hand : in the
other is a bunch of grapes. She herself is seated on St.
Anne's knee. The whole group is extremely difficult
to characterize, and to assign an origin with any con-
fidence. The St. Anne, in pose, in breadth of hand-
ling of the draperies, and in expression is noble and
inspiring. But the Infant, weakly and unintelligent,
1 M. Koechlin, the well-known French writer on art, was kind enough to
give me the following information in response to my inquiries concerning
effigies in wood on the continent. He says: * Sepulchral figures in wood are
very rare in France. For my part I only know one, of the fourteenth century,
which was shown at the exhibition of French Primitives in 1904. It is an
effigy of a lady, in very low relief, which had never been placed on a tomb, but,
I think, stood upright, something after the manner of certain brasses in Italy
or Germany, on a wall, the body interred beneath. As to the effigy in the
Mush des Arts D'ecoratifs, the young girl is Italian, This and another French
recumbent figure, evidently a fragment of a monument, are reproduced in our
catalogue Lt Bois, i4" partie. Planches 19 ct 10. As to the " Moine chevalier"
that you ask about, it is no doubt Italian, but it is very difficult to say whether
it is a sepulchral effigy, or some other kind of figure. In any case the piece is
not French/
306
ENGLISH FIGURE WORK
is puzzling. We must remember, however, that the
figures lack now the colouring in view of which they
were probably sculptured. I hesitate to accept the
ascription of the museum authorities to England, even
allowing for close following of Netherlandish or
German models, for we have no authority for the
probability that the fashion of Anna selbdritt was
followed in England. On the other hand it would not
be difficult to find in Flemish or German art analogies
with the face of the Virgin. The Infant, small and
rickety as it seems to be, has not a little resemblance,
in form and pose, to some fifteenth-century Suabian
wood sculpture. I would cite, for instance, a painted
Madonna group in the Berlin Museum : Mary seated,
holding a large ball or globe, the Child facing and
blessing. Yet if we take the figure of St. Anne
by itself, it must, I think, be given to the Low
Countries. At the same time I hold it to be a ques-
tion not easy to settle with any certainty. The
principal difficulty is that we have here an unfinished
work.
There is a curious panel in high relief in the same
museum which we may feel pretty sure is English, of
mid-thirteenth century, and an exceedingly interesting
example. The Almighty — so says the label — seated in
a recess holds a cross between His knees. But the
face, with the parted hair, flowing locks, and type of
beard is not suggestive of God the Father, but, rather,
of the Saviour, although it was unusual thus to repre-
sent Him. Neither is there any figure on the cross,
but a plain circle or aureole and a cross within it at
the intersection of the arms of the larger cross. The
panel is of oak, in its present condition almost black
oak, but of course at one time painted, as the linen
substratum and priming remaining show. Six of a set
of English figures of the Apostles (No. 411, 1589),
formerly in the Maskell collection, and given by Mr.
307
WOOD SCULPTURE
Maskell, are here reproduced on the same plate as a set
by Riemenschneider (Plate XLIX.), but one can find in
them no resemblance to the Lower Prankish school.
The draperies are entirely different, without any ex-
aggerated angular folds- I think them to be late
fourteenth rather than fifteenth century as the museum
label describes them. They are of fairly early style,
with something of the stolidity of the Lewis ivory
chessmen. The faces and general character are of the
type of the Saviour figure just described. But the
inspiration is various : partly French, and, if in any
way German, would be of the Low German or Suabian
type of the early fifteenth century. It is not unlikely
that the destination of figures such as these was to
flank the poppy-heads of some elaborately carved bench-
ends. A fifteenth-century Madonna statuette, also
from the Maskell collection, is interesting (though in
bad condition) on account of the scarcity of English
examples. It is not a fine work, certainly, with the
fat heavy cheeks which even the colouring would
not alter. A standing figure of St. Andrew in oak,
unpainted, and an appliqu6 group of the Blessed
Virgin and St. Joseph adoring the Infant — interesting
on account of the costumes — and an early sixteenth-
century figure in a flat doctor's cap almost exhaust
the list of English figure work of Gothic times in the
museum.
There still exist in various churches in the country
a few lecterns, of wood, which come more properly
under the head of furniture. Among them may be
cited those of Detling in Kent, Ramsey and Bury in
Hunts, Lingfield, Wells, and Norwich. In Labarte's
Handbook of the Arts of the Middle Ages, published
in 1847, is figured a carved saddleback or cantle of
wood, which, judging from the engraving, seems of
extremely fine character It was formerly in the
Debruge collection. The subjects are a knight and a
308
PLATE XL IX
P
55
MASTER CARVERS
wodehouse or wild man of the woods fighting wild
animals, and other small figures hunting. There is an
edging of rosettes, and the character of the carving
generally is in the style of English ivories. I cannot
help remarking how often in the case of ivories which
at first glance suggest an English origin, one finds,
next, that characteristic border of rosettes. It is not,
of course, intended to say that these by themselves
prove English workmanship, for one finds them equally
in French ivories. I have no information where this
saddle cantle now is — perhaps in the Louvre. In
default of examples in wood, I have long held the
opinion that very many mediaeval ivories usually
ascribed to France should testify to the excellence of
English art, and the difficulties in the way may one
day be elucidated.
The question is asked in a succeeding chapter —
4 Who, then, did this village work ? ' For a reply we
are almost entirely dependent on parish accounts.
There are few of these earlier than the fifteenth century,
and the names of carvers are hardly ever mentioned in
them. We may take it that the master carpenters of
the Middle Ages were not only architects and contrac-
tors for work, but were the designers also. Some
information may be gleaned, with the names of
carpenters in the thirteenth century, from Smith's
Antiquities of Westminster, and Brayley and Neales*
account of the abbey; and in the accounts of the
Carpenters Company are some mentions of the panel-
lings of the halls of the City Companies, but few names
of carvers. In an issue roll, we find that William de
Lyndesay, of London, a carver of wood images, was
paid in 1307 for a table (retable) with wood images for
St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Other names of
imagers appear, such as Alexander of Abingdon, 1305,
but we cannot distinguish those who worked only in
wood In or about 1506 Laurence Imber, Drawswerd,
309
WOOD SCULPTURE
and others, made estimates for patterns in wood for
the images for the tomb of Henry the Seventh. The
'patrones to be made as well as can be done/
Laurence Imber, who died in 1529, was of a famous
family of carvers, and came to be sheriff and mayor.
No doubt these pattern makers such as le imaginator^
John Hales, who made one for a bronze effigy at
Ormskirk, were sculptors of general figure work also.
The bill of the king's goldsmith for the Coronation
Chair at Westminster includes 'pro duobus leopardis
parms de ligno, faciendis, depingendis et deattrandis*
to be made by Master Walter, who was also the king's
painter, A.D. 1299. In the Fabric rolls of Exeter we
find the charge for timber for the bishop's seat brought
from Newton Abbot and Chudleigh : four pounds to
Robert de Galmeton for making it, also for six statues.
The accounts for Somersetshire and Devon parishes
are referred to in another chapter of this book. At
Yatton in 1446 Crosse, the carpenter, is conspicuous in
the making of the roodloft, and there are payments to
John Balwe and J. Hikke pro factura sedilium^
probably of wood, for the cost for nails follows, and we
find also the names of John Wakelyn, R, Kew, and
J. Mey, carvers and gilders, Hyllman and Maskall
being churchwardens in 1408. In 1535 'to Sperark
ye carver, ernest pense iijV At Tintinhull in 1451
occurs the name of Thomas Dayfote, carpenter, for
making the roode ' ut in meremiis ligneis ex conven-
tione? and to ' uno peynter for peynting de la rodeloft'
But most frequently there are no names, but only
entries, such as in the Stamford accounts, that the
churchwardens go to Abingdon 'to speke for y mages,
vijd : item for three images, the Rode, Mary, and John,
xxij8' iijV The records and documents belonging to
the dean and chapter of Worcester afford some infor-
mation, Amongst them is Prior Moore's most
interesting journal of 1518. In this are many par-
310
IMAGERS
ticulars of payments: nearly twelve pounds (a large
sum) to Thomas Stilgo for * gylding and peynting of
ye ymags Ch'us and or Lady in ye mydd. of ye awtur in
Seynt Cecili's chapel/ In the accounts of St. Mary at
Hill, in the city of London, in 1496 : f Item to Sir John
Plumer for making of the fygyres of the Roode, xxd ;
item to the Karvare for making of iij dyadems and of
oon of the evangelystes, and for mending the roode,
the crosse, the Mary and John, the Crown of Thorn,
with all odyr fawtes, summa loV 'Paid to Undir-
wood for paynting and gyldyng of the iij diadems, with
the ij nobillas that I owe to him in moneye summa
vli xja xd.' Among sepulchral effigies on the Neville
monument at Staindrop is recorded on the edge the
name of the artist, John Starbqttom.
Meagre though these entries may be, they might be
extended to a considerable extent, and the quaint
language and spelling add not a little to their interest ;
sometimes, even, to our information. In any case they
show that there was considerable activity in the craft
of woodcarving in England in the centuries immedi-
ately preceding the Reformation to which they refer.
But in but one instance can we identify by record or
by mark on the piece itself any English sculpture with
the name of the artist. Nor have we any sign of
guildmarks and their regulations such as those to
which reference has been made in the case of Flanders.
In all probability the English mediaeval imager was
not an artist of great consideration. His identity was
sunk in his craft. Even in stone, in the thirteenth
century, we hear only vaguely of irnagers who made
the Eleanor crosses : of William of Colchester, of
William de Torell, or of the masters in bronze or in
gold and silver whom Matthew Paris mentions. How
much less account, then, must we expect of the wood
chippers ! The master carpenter was everything, the
others his tools. He was the arranger of the picture,
WOOD SCULPTURE
and it was the decorative whole rather than the
individual units which told. Yet of the master
builder himself, his name and methods of organization,
our information up to the revival in Italy, and then
for a further considerable period in that country only,
is vaguely indefinite.
312
T
CHAPTER XVI
CHOIRS AND CHOIR STALLS
HROUGHOUT the history of woodcarving and
of the innumerable uses to which the material
has been applied in decoration, nothing is
more prominent than the furnishing and ornamenting
of the choirs and chancels of churches. Even if we
should consider only the quantity of material employed
this has been enormous, and despite destructions it
still continues to beautify innumerable churches, great
and small, throughout the land. Necessarily, of
course, woodwork, more or less carved, is used in the
architectural construction of these edifices. It is not,
however, with the timbered roofs, which still exist in
considerable numbers, and in no country more than in
England, of such incomparable beauty, or with the
other details of the main structure that we shall now
be occupied. The choirs and chancels with their
canopied stall work, the episcopal thrones, the sedilia
for the officiating clergy, the rood and other screens
dividing the choir from the rest of the church and — in
England especially — the interesting bench-ends, form
a subject which is almost endless in variety and
interest. Each and every one of the divisions just
mentioned might again be subdivided, and is of
sufficient importance to require a monograph surpass-
ing the dimensions of the present book. As a matter
of fact such monographs already exist, not only on each
subject generally, but on each as applied to some
313
WOOD SCULPTURE
particular instance. For example, amongst others, the
choirs of Amiens and of Ulm have had their special
chroniclers ; misericords, and the countless number of
themes which they illustrate, have been specially
described over and over again in the proceedings of
provincial societies in every country and — to refer to
England alone — the subject of screens and roodlofts
has received special attention in quite recent years.
But even this division of the subject, so far as our own
country is concerned, is of so extensive a nature, and
involves so many general considerations, that in no one
book can it be said to have progressed further — broadly
speaking — than as regards the west of England. In
a volume such as the present one, therefore, it would
be hardly possible to attempt more than a general out-
line of the use of wood sculpture in the decoration of
choir and stall work, and of the screens forming the
enclosures, or separation from the rest of the church,
together with a slight survey of the history of the
symbolism so extensively used in the carving of the
under parts of the stall seats, known as misericords, of
the statuary, and of the elaborate, pictorial, and orna-
mental sculpture which is so remarkable a feature of
Amiens, of Ulm, and of many other great choirs of
the later days of Gothic.
We know very little indeed regarding any precise
date at which we may place the introduction of a choir,
such as we understand it to-day, with its places for the
clergy and assistants in the form of ranges of stalls
having arm-rests and seats which turn up in order to
afford a kind of rest to a position which is neither
sitting nor standing. In ancient times churches were
entirely without any seating for the faithful, as, indeed,
they are now in those of the Oriental rites. The
attitude for prayer, in which may be included any part
of the assistance at the holy offices, was standing. The
arrangement of the choir permitted a view of the altar
CHOIRS
and the priests, and it was not until about the ninth
century that screens forming enclosures rendered the
officiating clergy invisible from the body of the church.
There would certainly appear to have been no kind of
seats before the eighth century. From that time to
the eleventh all kinds of attempts were made to intro-
duce them. That they existed in England in a
movable form in the eleventh century is certain, for
Lanfranc prescribes their removal on Good Friday at
the ancient ceremony of creeping to the cross (Decretum
pro ord. S. Ben.}. The early history of the construction
of choirs need not, however, be followed here in detail.
It will be sufficient to name, for the needs of the
student, such works as those of De Fleury, Gu<f ndbault,
Ducange, the encyclopaedia of Cabrol and Leclercq, and
the researches from which we continue to profit, of
Mr. Edmund Bishop.
Until, roughly speaking, the eleventh century, the
chancel was separated from the body of the church by
a low screen or balustrade — the cancelli, whence the
name of this part is derived. Within these rails stood
the altar, and beyond this and facing it was a range of
seats against the wall of the apse, and in the centre of
them the throne or seat of the bishop. In those days
— or when this arrangement was altered and the monks
took their places in rows on each side of the choir, in
front instead of behind the altar — the long offices and
ceremonies at which they assisted necessitated some
indulgence or relaxation from the standing position.
The earliest practice was the use of a kind of crutch,
the head often curiously carved and decorated. Some
of these in ivory, wood, and metal, still remain, and are
sometimes confounded with the similarly tau-shaped
staff, used by a bishop, which became later the crosier
as we now know it. Ancient regulations and con-
stitutions show that the use of this support was general.
Sometimes protested against, it was disallowed, from
315
WOOD SCULPTURE
time to time, according as a more or less severe rule
prevailed, and it is certain that its use was not confined
to the old or infirm. Even the laity availed themselves
of it, and there are liturgical instructions regulating
when it must be laid down — for instance, during the
reading of the gospel
The origin of the term stall would seem to be from
the standing place, or division, in which persons, or, in
the case of a stable, animals, are separated one from
another. It is impossible to say at what date the form
of choir stall with the arm-rest fulfilling the earlier
function of the crutch, and the upturned seat, with its
support against which the body could rest, became
general. Certain it is that from the thirteenth century
to the present day no kind of church furniture has
altered so little in form. If not the earliest, a very
early mention of stalls is in the statutes of the church
of Maestricht in the year 1088. The annals of Amiens
Cathedral have, at the end of the twelfth century, an
order that new canons should have each his stall
(stallum} in choir. In the thirteenth the custom is
fully established, so that it is hardly necessary to refer
to the allusions to stalls which we find in the Historic*
major of our own Matthew Paris. At Wells there
would seem to have been stalls in Bishop Jocelyn's
time, according to the register of his election in 1206,
now in the library of the dean and chapter. They were
removed in 1325 when new ones were ordered, and as
they are then termed ruinosi et difformes, we may take
it that they had already existed some considerable
time. The misericord, or something which seems to
correspond with it, is mentioned in several documents
of the twelfth century. The actual term itself appears
in the constitutions of the abbey of Hirsaugh in
Germany, in the first quarter of the twelfth century
(Const. Hirs. seu Gengembach ex MSS. Einsiedln),
and it will suffice for .further early references to quote
3*6
THE MISERICORD
the following from a Cottonian MS. containing the
rules of the Carthusian order: 'Item, tune stent in
sedibus suis versa facie ad alt are donee ad misericordias
vel super famulas prout tempus postulat inclinent a
laudibus enim mgiliae natalis Domini usque in cras-
tinum octabarum apparitionis et a Pasca in crastinum
octabarum Pentecostes et infra octabas Corporis Chris fi
assumptionis et natalis beate Mariae et in festis xii
lectionum ad misericordias inclinamus omni vero alia
tempore procumbimus super formulas' (Monasticon.
vi. 5). A little bit of monkish humour is inscribed on
a . fragment of a choir stall in the museum of St.
Andrew's Church at Freising. It is dated 1423 : —
* Cantet in choro, sicut asellus in foro
Hie locus est horum qui cantant, non aliorum.'
A habit seems to have grown up in England of late
years of using the term miserere instead of misericord
for this kind of console beneath the movable seat. It
is quite inappropriate and without authority. If any
other term besides the Latin misericordia, subsellia or
sedicula might be suggested, the French patience or
indulgence would be expressive. But we may be very
well content with misericord, which is happily replacing,
in literature at least, the incorrect miserere. Inci-
dentally it may be noted that the name misericord was
also given to a portion of an abbey where the indulgence
of eating meat was allowed to the old or infirm.
Stalls were assigned to dignitaries and choir monks
in a certain order, and one uniform system seems to
have been in vogue in pre- Reformation times in England.
Here the Benedictine custom was that the stall of the
highest in dignity was the first one on the south side,
farthest from the altar, on entering the choir: the
others followed from side to side, the lowest in rank
nearest the altar, the stall of the claustral prior on the
north side, opposite that of the abbot. In cathedral
317
WOOD SCULPTURE
priories the bishop had his throne on the south side in
the chancel. This fashion is still followed in the
English cathedrals and in the college chapels of Oxford
and Cambridge. At Ely the bishop, who has no
throne, and whose abbey became a bishopric in 1109,
occupies the abbot's stall. According to the Ordinatio
ckricorum of Wells (Creighton MS. in the library of
the dean and chapter) the dean's place was the first
returned stall on the south side at the entrance of the
choir, the bishop's at the extreme east end on the
same side. 'The English Benedictine arrangement
just described seems to be followed at the present day
in only two of the many Benedictine monasteries in
this country, and those, curiously enough, are not of
English origin. They are St. Augustine's Monastery,
Ramsgate, and St. Mary s Abbey, Buckfastleigh — both
belonging to the Cassinese congregation. But in the
monasteries of the English congregation — Downside,1
Ampleforth, Douai, and Belmont — and also in those of
the Beuron congregation at Erdington and of the
Gallican (Solesmes) congregation at Farnborough and
Appuldurcombe, the plan followed is just the reverse,
i.e. the stall occupied by the abbot is that nearest the
altar on the north side of the choir, and the western-
most stalls are those of the lowest in the community
(Downside Review, vol. iv. 181).
No traces are left of the ancient arrangement of the
bishop's place in the apse, and, so far as we know, no
stalls remain of an earlier date than the thirteenth
century. Viollet-Le-Duc quotes de Verneilh to show
that Hugues de Toucy, bishop of Sens from 1143 to
1 1 68, had had constructed some stalls of oak. But the
chronicler responsible for this statement lived in 1294.
Still, accepting as we do the thirteenth century as the
date of the misericords and stalls of Exeter and Poitiers,
for example, it is evident that the system was at that
1 Downside has lately reverted to the earlier English plan.
318
CHOIR STALLS
time firmly established and no novelty. Briefly stated,
the arrangement of the choir fittings which has obtained
almost without change from their earliest introduction
to the present day, consists of rows of seats raised on
steps one behind the other, in number according to
requirements, on each side of the choir from east to
west, with spaces at intervals to give access to the
higher rows. The separation between any two stalls
is termed the parclose, the top of this the museau, and
the woodwork at each end of a set, where the carving
is usually richer, the joude. The elbow rests are slightly
sloped, so as to prevent the slipping of the arms,
and the ends enlarged in spatula form to allow two
neighbouring persons to rest their elbows without
inconvenience. The upper part of each row forms a
kind of prie-Dieu for the set above, and the rows as a
whole are usually returned at the western extremities
so that a certain number on each side face the east.
The whole is enclosed by woodwork richly carved and
rising sometimes almost to the roof. This enclosure,
which perhaps was not fully evolved before the four-
teenth century, serves as a protection against the cold
of northern climates, during the recitation of the offices
through the hours of the night, and may possibly be
an adaptation of the Oriental iconostasis separating the
portion destined for the celebration of the holy mysteries
from the rest of the sacred edifice. The imposing
mass of screen, the richest in carving and the most
brilliant accessory of the choir decoration, served also to
carry the canopy or dais which, as it were, separately
roofed in this part of the building. Glorious above all,
a forest of imagery and ornament, this towering mass
of architectural work is carved into vaultings, arches,
pinnacles, pendentives, culs-de-lampe and every fancy
and vagary derived from sculpture in stone, supple-
mented by all that gives distinction and grace to the
peculiar characteristics of wood, and affording ground
319
WOOD SCULPTURE
for every description of pictorial sculpture in panels
and statuary, in low and in high relief.
Coming to the stalls themselves we find them com-
posed of seats which can be turned up, bearing on their
under sides a projection from which some support,
when standing, may be obtained. This is the miseri-
cord, or patience, which in course of time gave oppor-
tunities for carving on it all manner of decorative and
pictorial themes. Far from being confined to sacred
imagery these indeed display very often, after the
joyous fashion of mediaeval times, what may almost be
called albums of quaint conceits, of fun and humour,
degenerating at times — at least according to modern
ideas or squeainishness — into a certain coarseness
and exaggeration of the grotesque and a twisting of
symbolism, of which it is by no means easy nowadays
always to discover the meaning or application. Nothing
is more difficult of explanation than the fact that
wherever we find these things — abounding in almost
countless hundreds in every western country — not only
do the general character, choice of subject, and the treat-
ment of it differ but slightly, but even the execution is
such that — with a certain allowance for changes in
costume and manners during a period of three centuries
— it would be hardly an exaggeration to say that all
might have issued from the same workshop.
To complete the stall there are, besides the parcloses
and joudes already mentioned, the projecting elbow
rests, or accoudoirs, and the knobs on which the hands
may be placed as an assistance on rising: the latter
very frequently carved with heads — grotesque or other-
wise— or perhaps an entire animal or a subject of some
kind. Probably, at first, the joules were openworked
volutes as in the examples given in the sketchbook of
Wilars de Honecourt. Later on, and in the four-
teenth century especially, birds, animals, figures of holy
personages and incidents in their lives, and a diversity
320
DECORATIVE CHOIR-WORK
of ornament were added to the openwork, as well as to
the closed portion beneath. At Amiens especially, this
figuring of entire scenes in relief was carried to an
extent hardly equalled elsewhere.
Almost every country possesses in its cathedral and
collegiate churches examples of decorative choir-work
in which wood sculpture forms the most prominent
feature. They are in such numbers, and they vie with
each other to such an extent in the richness and
elaboration of detail, that to attempt anything like a
full description of any one of the most important would
require a volume and innumerable illustrations. It is,
therefore, impossible, within our limits, to do more
than select a few typical examples and endeavour to
summarize their general aspect. For this purpose we
must be content with Amiens in France, Ulm in Ger-
many, Windsor in England, and a short notice for
Spain. The choir-work of Italy comes more under the
head of post-Renaissance art with which, for the
present, with some exceptions, it has not been proposed
to deaL The stalls themselves, with their misericords,
must also be treated as a whole, with a few references
to the most striking features.
The records of Amiens seem to show that from the
earliest times of which we have precise documents the
choir of the cathedral was furnished with rows of stalls
in two categories : a higher range for the greater digni-
taries, and a lower one for those of inferior rank.
Ancient regulations, which go back as far as the
eleventh century, assign them thus to the bishop, deans,
precentors, and minor clergy. But they were evidently
of a provisional character, and the troublous times of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries prevented the
accomplishment of a greater scheme which had long
been contemplated. Until the thirteenth century,
furniture of the kind — indeed, furniture of all kinds,
if we may judge from the few examples which have
x 321
WOOD SCULPTURE
come down to us — was the work of the ordinary
carpenter. The hucher or huchier had little or no pre-
tensions as a carver or figure worker. The time had
hardly arrived when a more important part was to be
given to sculpture in the fittings of churches, and when
the architect was to determine the general lines of the
edifice and to assign to the hucher his particular share
in the work. It is still quite uncertain to what extent
art work of all kinds should be attributed to monks.
As we are, for the moment, concerned with France, it
may be observed that Molinier held strongly the
opinion that the idea that they were so greatly
responsible has been much overdone. He says that
though in Italy the religious orders furnished wood-
carving to a considerable extent, there is no documen-
tary evidence, in France, at least, to prove it : not even
that illuminated MSS. proceeded habitually from that
source. However this may be, it was not until the last
years of the thirteenth century that the hucher began
to enrich his work with sculptures in relief and with
figures in the round. We have then, of course,
such characteristic pieces as the coffer of the Cluny
Museum.
We are beginning, it is true, in this woodcarving of
the cathedral of Amiens, an account of choir-work at
almost the latest period of its full development. It is
of the early years of the sixteenth century, but although
the influence of the Italian Renaissance is marked, here
and there, in some ornamental details, it is still Gothic
in general, and the evidence is apparent how very
strongly influenced the architects and sculptors were
by the architecture and glorious imagery of the door-
ways, screens, and other parts of the great edifice, the
work of those who had preceded them three centuries
before. The sculpture of the choir of Amiens is a
r&um£ of Gothic art at its culminating point, at a
period when it was slowly flickering out and destined
322
AMIENS
soon to be abandoned in favour of the advancing
Italian style.
Without quitting the cathedral we are enabled to
read the whole story of Gothic architecture in the
country of its birth, and not far distant from its birth-
place. We may read also, perhaps, the influences
brought to bear by the political conditions of centuries ;
from the days, at least, of the first quarter of the
fourteenth when the kings of France and England met
within these walls, with all the pomp and state of the
time ; when our Edward in. rendered solemn homage
therein for his French duchies to Philip vi., until at"
the end of that century the flamboyant style became
dominant.
We have been accustomed to see in the small sculp-
ture of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries — for
example in ivories — an inspiration from the greater
sculptural work, not only in architectural details, but
also in the figure work. But comparing these with the
method of imitation used by the woodcarvers of
Amiens, the same comparison no longer applies. In
the one case they were in many instances rudely counter-
feiting a general effect by the introduction of a
decorative framework of an impossible architecture that
never existed, and that was not intended to be other-
wise. In the wood it is true architectural work. No
longer do we have these little scenes, each under its
arch, in a kind of symbolical shorthand, or like little
cinematographs, but a broadened out conception of
statuary tableaux analogous to the retables already
described. We shall see, also, how it was the comple-
tion of a new system of ornamentation, led up to by
slow and timid steps, during the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. No longer were these decorators
contented with a conventional arrangement, borrowed
from a restricted number of elements in the flora of the
country, interspersed with representations of fabulous
3^3
WOOD SCULPTURE
animals drawn from the bestiaries. They go now to
the everyday life around them and reproduce it faith-
fully, adapting it even to the most sacred subjects.
In the tendency which is so marked, towards the
mingling of sacred subjects and ideas with the sur-
roundings, costumes, manners, and customs of con-
temporary life, one cannot help recognizing the
influence of Flanders and of its great schools of
painting. Nothing, of course, would have been more
natural, when we consider the political conditions of
the two countries, the near neighbourhood of the
Burgundian provinces under a common sovereign with
the Netherlands, and the considerable commercial
relations. All this conduced to a spirit of artistic
brotherhood working on the same lines and governed
by similar principles. Contemporary records show
also that the assistance of Flemish artists was
frequently called in, as well as those engaged in the
building and decorations of other cathedrals and
churches in the north of France and the bordering
provinces. But whatever other influences may have
contributed, and however strong that of Flanders may
have been, the work at Amiens is entirely French and
by French artists.
It was early in the sixteenth century that the
chapter of the cathedral decided to reconstruct the
choir and stalls. In the city itself was Arnoul Boulin,
matt-re menuisier, to whom the order was given to make
1 20 richly carved stalls, and with him were associated,
for the storied parts, the tailleurs riimages, Antoine
Avernier and, later on, Alexandre Huet. The canons
of the cathedral sat as a permanent committee, and
decided every important detail. Before, however, the
plans were definitely fixed the mattres menuisiers made
prolonged visits to the cathedrals of Rouen, Beauvais,
and St. Riquier. The stalls of Rouen still exist, and
it must suffice to refer to their important connexion
324
AMIENS
with the works at Amiens, our artists having taken
ample notes during their journeys. Meanwhile, great
quantities of oak and chestnut had been collected at
considerable expense from the forests of Abbeville and
Saint Valery, and especially from that of Neuville-en-
Hez, near Clermont. The finest, which was used for
the bas-reliefs, was brought from Holland. Huge
pieces, almost entire trees, were required for certain
portions, such as the throne. There are still to be
seen single blocks measuring 30 feet and more in
length. We have the names of the principal workers
or contractors, but information is wanting regarding
the actual carvers of the astonishing series of figure
work and decorative sculpture in wood with which we
are confronted. Boulin is generally named as the
principal carver. How far this may be true would
involve more space than can be spared for the investi-
gation. We may be content to accept his name as a
representative one. Doubtless the practice of a wood-
carving establishment, under the direction of its
owner, was not very different from that of the present
day. Begun in 1508, it is not until eight years later
that we find carved on a stall-end the name and inscrip-
tion JAN • TRVPIN - DIEV - TE - povRVOiE •, and not for
three years more was the work completed.
Those who are already well acquainted with the
astonishing variety to be found in such works as the
choirs of Amiens, of Ulm, or of Audi — and there are
many more in the same category — will not be surprised
that one renounces at once, in such a book as the
present one, the task of a detailed description. A
French writer has said of the first that its study is the
whole study of religion. It is this and more. It is a
study also, within a limited area, of the domestic
history of the period, of the architecture, manners and
customs, trades and occupations, costumes, life and
character of a city and of a people at a time when
WOOD SCULPTURE
almost a revolution in thoughts and habits was taking
place throughout the Western world : a revolution
outwardly expressed by the transition from Gothic
medievalism to everything which may be implied by
the term Renaissance. On the one hand we have the
pictorial Bible in its countless figures and episodes
drawn from the whole of the Old and New Testa-
ments, as it had been exhibited for three hundred years
at least for the instruction of the people : on the other
a freer and more natural rendering of it, by bringing
these episodes, as it were, down to the period of the
then living citizens of Amiens, and connecting it
with the domestic life, the luxury, costumes, occupa-
tions, virtues, and failings with which they were
familiar.
The sculpture which covers the vast extent of
surface of the screen-work, parcloses, joudes, and dais,
leaving hardly a square inch unoccupied, is in three
distinct series, comprising Old and New Testament
scenes, episodes in the life of the Blessed Virgin, and
endless subjects drawn from history, allegory, and
morality, including some entirely profane. We begin
with the Creation, the story of the Fall, and the other
events narrated in Genesis, everywhere meeting with
the prophetical and mystical interpretations connecting
them with the Blessed Virgin. So vividly are these
things expressed that we hardly seem to notice the
daring poetic licence with which they are treated. The
buildings and accessories are those of the time: the
coiffures and costumes of the richest in the case of
important personages, for example, in the up-to-date
elegance of Potiphar's wife. Or there is the execution
of a malefactor, the butler of Pharaoh's household, the
gibbet, and the executioner in the official dress familiar
to the people. Or, again, an illustration of table
manners of the period. Moses sits at the banquet,
richly dressed, the king's daughter near him, in a long,
326
AMIENS
close-fitting dress, with jewelled girdle hanging loosely
in front, and wearing the elaborate steeple headdress
known as the hennin. In every detail there is some-
thing to be learnt : in the architecture of the palaces
and streets, the furniture, beds, chests with their iron-
work and locks, couches, chairs, tables, sideboards,
cradles, or funeral paraphernalia. On the principal
stalls we have the whole history, scriptural and
legendary, of the Virgin Mary ; her attributes, and the
prophecies and symbols connected with her. We have,
for example, amongst others, for which legendary lore
has been ransacked and exhausted, the unicorn pursued
by four greyhounds taking refuge in the lap of a pure
Virgin ; allegories connecting her with the Incarnation,
the earthly life, culminating with the crucifixion, resur-
rection, and ascension, and finally her death, the
Assumption, and the Coronation. As Ruskin wrote
of it : ' The people of Scripture go about their daily
affairs as the sculptor saw the people of Amiens go
about theirs/ Throughout, of course, the costumes of
the holiest personages are according to hagiographic
conventions.
From another point of view it seems a repetition,
yet an unavoidable one, to insist that we may find in
these scenes a complete treatise on the architecture of
a city of the sixteenth century, a guide to every detail
of domestic life and of the habits of every class of
society in those days. The costumes are of the time
of Louis xii. : we remark the extravagantly pointed
footgear, or the fashions termed en guimbarde or en
bee de canne which supplanted that a la fioulaine.
The ladies of quality wear the hennin, the turban, or
the stuffed headdress known as the bourrelet — the
fashions of Anne de Bretagne. Every class is repre-
sented : the clergy, episcopally vested, or in chasuble
for mass, in long sleeved surplice or in almuces as
canons, the acolyte, and every grade of the minor
327
WOOD SCULPTURE
orders — even the long-haired giver of holy water : the
apothecary in the costume and with the accessories of
his profession; the butcher, the baker, the schoolmaster,
the itinerant musician ; scribe, money-changer, banker,
merchant, huchier or cabinetmaker and carver — and
we remark that the last named is richly dressed, show-
ing the importance of his position ; tradesmen and
tradesmen's wives, ladies of easy virtue, shoemakers,
tailors, and craftsmen of all kinds ; monks, nuns,
soldiers ; the confessional, with a confessor and his
penitent, the other sacraments of the church ; nurses
and babies, pilgrims, doctors and their patients ; dances
and games and drinking scenes, dances of death,
mystery plays ; scolds and scandalmongers, usurers,
fools, money-lenders, children with their toys and
hobby-horses ; public baths and people bathing, a
woman beating her husband, a coiner making coins —
the list is inexhaustible. Every phase of virtue and
vice is shown. It is the Smnma of St. Thomas illus-
trated : it is humanity, in fact.
One special figure must be mentioned. It is that
of Master Jehan Trupin, richly dressed, working with
chisel and mallet on a statue, by his side a pot of some
refreshing drink. But whether, and to what extent,
we may recognize in him the creator of this great work
is not absolutely certain. Late investigations would
seem to show that far from being the principal sculptor
and designer he was merely an ordinary workman ;
perhaps not even a huchier. It is hard to destroy the
legend that the figure is that of the Jean Trupin who
for some reason or other has been immortalized by the
inscription of his name on the elbow-rest of stall 85,
but there is nothing positive to support it. Again,
Antoine Avernier may have been the architect and
designer, or, oh the other hand, only the contractor.
The registers show that Boulin and Alexandre Huet
went to Beauvais and St. Riquier to see the chaires
328
PLATE L
AMIKNS CATHKhRAL.' PART OF THE SOJLl'TUKKP WORK ON THK JUi'M<: OF STALL J)l.
KAKIA' HIXTKENTH I'-KMTURY
I'AGE 3«8
AMIENS
there, and to Rouen, whose stalls date from 1457,
judging from results, they made little use of their
notes. It is interesting to observe that at first the
misericords were to be ' garnis defeuillage ou manne-
quins et petit s bestiaiix et autre chose a plaisance'
Later on, it was decided to make a 'suite de sujets
bibliquesj which was a novelty. The following addi-
tional names are known, whatever their part in the
work may have been: Linard le Clerc, Guillaume
Quentin, Pierre Meurisse, and two lay-brothers,
* deux frbres confers Cordeliers, habiles menuisiers
d'Abbemllel who were engaged in 1510, 'pour tra-
it ailler aux chair es et conduire towvrage?
It is said that the task of counting the figures to be
found in the scenes and decoration of the work has
been attempted, and that they amount to 3650. Gothic
in its sentiment throughout — in the attitudes and
expressions, for instance, of the holy women at the
foot of the cross — mingled with the mystical art of the
ages of Faith as it was nearing its decline in the first
decade of the sixteenth century, we have in other parts
of the decorative details an evidence of an acceptance —
if with reluctance — of the spreading teachings of the
Renaissance. But if Arnoul Boulin, in the pendentives
and culs-de-lampe which are probably by his hand, was
unable to resist these advancing principles, he took
from them only what was sufficient to brighten the
monotony which long continued association with the
older system had no doubt begun to make felt. Here
and there are columns, here and there are fatputti of
Italy, singly or dancing in a garlanded chain, exquisite
foliage work, cartouches, heads in medallions, cornu-
copiae, and vases. What we have of this character is
of fine execution, but in low relief : almost, as it were,
apologizing for its presence and unobtrusive. It is
interesting also to notice that although we find this
influence of the Renaissance amongst the more strictly
329
WOOD SCULPTURE
decorative portions of the work, and subordinate to the
generally flamboyant Gothic character, it is entirely
absent in the treatment of the historical and domestic
scenes. Here there is nothing conventional but the
faithful realism of fashions, manners, and customs at
Amiens in 1508. In considering the work as a whole,
we must remember also the horrors of the Revolution-
ary period, and, worse still perhaps, here, as elsewhere,
the deplorable taste of the eighteenth century. All
this contributed to considerable alterations. A row of
fleurs-de-lis formerly ornamented the panelling at the
back of the stalls. This was removed at the Revolu-
tion, restored in 1814, and finally taken away in 1831.
A great deal of the original work was destroyed in
1755 at the time when the new high altar of carved
wood was erected. This still remains, its huge and
vulgar glory and other adornments, in the worst pos-
sible taste of the time, continuing to disfigure the
Gothic chef-tfceuvre. Marvellous it is that so much
should be left, despite even the desecrations at the
time of the celebration in the cathedral — as at Paris —
of the Feast of Reason.
It was Ruskin who said, with truth, that few have
written quite calmly who have written of Amiens at
all. No one better than he could appreciate, also, the
technical excellences of the work, the masterly chisel-
ling, boldly executed by practised hands, the last
almost of the race of artists by instinct, of workers by
tradition. He has given us The Bible of Amiens, in
which he writes : 'Aisles and porches, lancet windows,
and roses you can see elsewhere as here, but such
carpenter's work you cannot. Woodcarving was the
Picard's joy from his youth up, and, so far as I know,
there is nothing else so beautiful cut out of the goodly
trees of the wood. Sweet and young-grained wood
it is : oak trained and chosen for such work, sound
now as four hundred years since. Under the carver's
330
AMIENS
hand it seems to cut like clay, to fold like silk, to grow
like living branches, to leap like living flame. Canopy
crowning canopy, pinnacle piercing pinnacle, it shoots
and wreaths itself into an enchanted glade, inextricable,
imperishable, fuller of leafage than any forest, and
fuller of story than any book/ The Frenchman
Didron was not so enthusiastic. The stalls of Amiens
were not to his taste. Wonderful, then, as may be
the beauty of this great work, there may still be room
for differences in appreciation. No one can pretend to
compare it with those parts of the cathedral designed
and executed at the earlier and purest epoch of archi-
tecture and statuary: with the pictures in stone
throughout the exterior and interior. To take the
treat west front alone, there are no more beautiful
gures than the Virgin of the south door, the Virgin
of the Annunciation and the Virgin of the Visitation.
And for those to whom the imagery of still earlier
times appeal, need one call to mind the Beau-Dieu
of Amiens ?
Whatever the cause, whether from the approaching
Reformation or from some other, Germany is less rich
in stall- and choir-work than France, although the
practice and love of carved wood in the fifteenth
century was so strong. But there is one, at least, re-
markable exception. This is Ulm, the glories of whose
cathedral choir have been sung* over and over again.
Once more, in the series of ninety-two stalls in carved
oak with their accessories of screen and dais, throne
and sedilia, we meet with, as it were, an enchanted
forest peopled with innumerable figures : great moral
lessons drawn, for the sake of teaching by the eye, not
only from sacred history, but also from ancient records
of pre-Christian times : illustrated by great heroes, by
writers, poets, philosophers, and rulers. It is an im-
posing company, the men and women figures separated :
the men in three lines on the right-hand side of the
WOOD SCULPTURE
choir, the women, similarly, in three lines on the left.
Pagans, Jews, and Christians, philosophers, prophets,
saints and martyrs, form together a grave assembly, an
universal council. On the one side Socrates, Seneca,
Pliny, Terence, Pythagoras, Cicero, Moses, David, and
the Jewish kings of the Old and New Testaments.
On the other the sibyls : Jael, Ruth, Rebecca, Naomi,
Martha, Magdalen, Ursula, Elizabeth, Agnes — to name
no more. All these, and the stalls beneath with their
misericords, are set in a rich framework of elegant
tracery, in great part openworked : a profusion of orna-
ment under charmingly crocketed ogee arches, the
crockets themselves formed of trailing vine leaves and
grotesque animals. The eye is everywhere bewildered
by masses of luxuriant vegetation, amongst which in-
numerable animals and human figures, more or less
fantastic or natural, climb and disport themselves.
Dragons crawl and raise their terrible heads, lions
crouch and prepare to spring, dogs of the chase run
hither and thither, squirrels, apes, marmosets, and the
smaller denizens of the woods, snakes and snails and
every creeping thing, mix in endless numbers with
birds of all kinds— eagles, owls, doves, domestic fowls,
the inhabitants of sea and river; with all zoology,
known and fabulous, and with man himself under
every natural and grotesque aspect.
All this is repeated and, it may be said, summed up
in the finest part, for design and execution, of the
whole work • that is in the principal stall, or scdilia of
three places, for the priest, deacon, and subdeacon at
mass. This, the earliest executed of all the sculptured
masterpiece, is the work of the elder Jorg Syrlin,
father of Master Georg Syrlin, who has carved his own
portrait figure, in the round, on ti\sjoufa of one of the
stalls. Here he sits, his hat on his head, leaning over
and contemplating this great work of his creation.
And amongst the crowd of Jewesses, prophetesses,
332
ULM
sibyls, and saints, he has placed also the portrait figure
of his wife. That so much should have been done in
so short a time is recorded in the inscriptions added
by him: ' Georgius Surlin, 1469, Incepit hoc opus' :
and 'Jeorg Syrlin, 1474, complevit hoc opus.' This
German ckef-d'&uvre of elaborate choir-work was then
completed thirty-five years before that of Amiens
was contemplated. Molinier was of opinion that it
does not deserve the extravagant praise which has
been lavished upon it, and King in his Study Book of
Mediaeval Architecture, refers to it as a medley of
subjects due to the unsettled mind of artists of those
days. On the other hand, many will still continue to
see, notwithstanding its intricacy and elaboration, a
wonderful balance and, withal, a certain restraint so far
as was compatible with so comprehensive a scheme ;
and in the sedilia, taken alone, a masterpiece.
Details of the family of Syrlin, or Siirlen, are un-
fortunately almost completely wanting. The name
first appears in the list of master carpenters of the city
of Ulm in 1427 — that of Jorg Syrlin the elder in 1458,
and of the younger, to whom is attributed, with much
other work, the stalls of Blaubeuren and of Geislingen,
in 1512, Little else is known. In fact we must
consider the ' Master ' of this name to be the one who
executed the sculptures of the choir of Ulm. Of the
other work, which is unequal in merit, it is not easy to
be precise. The family name may even have been con-
tinued as a trade-mark or corporation. In any case, the
one who has left us his self-portrait and that of his
wife amongst the innumerable other busts and figure
work of the famous choir was a great artist, and
amongst those who worked in wood, an incomparable
sculptor. In his own portrait he represents himself
as Virgil It is a striking head, forcibly reminding us
of the style of an Italian quattrocento terra-cotta bust.
Throughout the series Syrlin shows an immense talent
333
WOOD SCULPTURE
as a portraitist, and this is the more remarkable when
we consider the age and country in which he lived.
Gothic feeling still almost exclusively prevailed, and
his absolute realism distinguishes him from his im-
mediate predecessor Multscher. Certainly, also, the
sculptor of such a group as the ' Entombment ' of the
Zweifalten Monastery, of which a cast may be seen in
the Kensington Museum, was a greater artist than his
Franconian successor Stoss, or even than Riemen-
schneider, if we should judge the latter only by the
work attributed to him which is authenticated.
One more example from among the fine choir-works
in wood of extreme elaborateness must be referred to
in general terms. It is that of Auch in the Toulousain
district of France. Here the whole choir area is quite
closed in with a mass of carved oak, which separates it
from the rest of the building as effectually as if it were
a small church by itself. The date of its construction ,
1529, is little later than that of Amiens, yet although
the Gothic style is still apparent in the stalls them-
selves and in the pinnacle and canopy work, it is
dominated by the pure paganism of the Renaissance,
which characterizes the beautiful figure work in low
relief of the panels which form the principal feature.
The architect, to whose imagination the general con-
ception is due, was content to leave the greater part of
the flat surfaces at the disposition of the sculptor.
But the reign of the animal and vegetable world, so
dear to the principles upon which the Gothic decorator
worked, was not yet entirely abandoned. It still
imposes itself and flows over the magnificent traceried
details of the parcloses and joules, finding, too, full
scope for the exercise of a fertile imagination in the
misericords of the stalls. Above these, and surround-
ing the whole of the choir, runs a noble row of figures
of saints and warriors and allegorical full-length statues
on culs-de4ampe pedestals. These with the dividing
334
AUCH
columns, the strings of dancing putti and the culs-
de-lampe themselves, show the strong Renaissance in-
fluence in this district at the time. The artist's name is
unknown. A Pyrenean, he was no doubt strongly im-
pressed with the art of the Peninsula on the other side
of the mountains, which he here endeavours to imitate.
But he was at least a master of his craft, and has
treated the oak with as much ease of touch as if it had
been the softer walnut which later on supplanted it in
these districts.
335
CHAPTER XVII
SYMBOLISM IN CHURCH WOODWORK— MISERICORDS—
BENCH-ENDS
IT is necessary to leave the general consideration of
choirs, and to restrict ourselves to those parts
only which — though as a rule hidden from view
— possess, nevertheless, a peculiar interest of their own.
These are the misericords of the stall-seats, and their
charm is not only, if principally, on account of the
subjects represented upon them. In all countries they
are not infrequently examples, also, of the art of wood-
carving as it was practised not only by sculptors by
profession and training, but also by the mechanic of
the workshop, the villager, or the inhabitant of a
monastery — the amateur artist, as we might say. The
same will hold good — especially in England — with
regard to the bench-ends of village churches, and even,
in some cases, the rood-screens.
Despite the destructions and degradations which '
have fallen to the lot of religious edifices in all countries,
despite also the changes of taste by which Gothic art
had been overpowered by that of the Renaissance, and
supplanted frequently by the rococo and the sham
antique, and despite the perishable nature and small
intrinsic value of wood, these misericords still remain
in almost numberless quantities. It is obviously im-
possible to treat the subject here in detail or with any
completeness. Thousands of examples of misericords
are noticed in the transactions of the provincial archseo-
336
SYMBOLISM
logical societies of every country, yet many more, no
doubt, have escaped especial attention.
As may be gathered from the general description of
those which will be presently noticed, the real meaning
of the subjects which they offer still affords material for
investigation and conjecture. Every now and again
the key to these cryptograms appears to suggest itself.
As an instance, there is the subject, so frequently found,
of the woman clothed only in a net, riding on a goat,
which will presently be described. There is evident
symbolism of a certain kind everywhere employed in
these carvings, but symbolism which after a time
became so distorted that its original meaning and place
among folk-lore were lost, and the subject was used
only from its comic aspect and suggestion. A symbol
has been defined as a figure or image employed to
represent something else : that is to say, something
other than at first sight would appear to be obvious ;
something in which our ingenuity or experience of the
science is to discover a deeper hidden meaning. A
misericord with Reynard the fox carrying off his spoils
of the poultry-yard does not merely refer to that
animal's natural propensities, but, especially if he walks
on two legs and wears a hood over his head, is a satire
on vices which are to be found even in a monastery.
This is still symbolism, even if degenerated into mere
ridicule. A signification of symbolism, as expressed by
Hugues de Saint Victor, is the allegorical representa-
tion of a Christian principle under a material form that
may be seized by the senses. From the earliest times
and in all ages symbolism has had an attraction for
mankind. In the first chapter of Genesis we are con-
fronted with the Tree of Knowledge, and the last book
of Scripture is an allegory from beginning to end. At
least we are left to discover hidden meanings clothed
in poetic imagery, expressed in terms suited to our
limited human knowledge* Those, then, who con-
Y 337
WOOD SCULPTURE
structed these books of imagery, whether in picture, in
sculptured stone or in wood, addressed themselves to
the illiterate or, at anyrate, to the mediaeval mind,
whose knowledge extended no further than to imagine
as possible the existence of a dragon, a griffin, or a
creature half human, half animal. The intention was
to instruct the ignorant in the sacred Scriptures, in
moral theology, and in some part also in natural history
and in the habits of plants and animals. It is certain
that human nature has ever delighted in representing
animals, or half-human, half-animal creatures, perform-
ing human functions, and endowed with human virtues
and vices. More than this, our nature, from earliest
infancy, takes a morbid pleasure in the horrible and in
the distortion of nature. The child, as a rule, prefers
the wicked giant to Jack who slays him, and turns to
the Yahoo in Gulliver with more eagerness than to the
gentle Houyhnhnm. And when, as we know, the most
elderly amongst us can, for the moment, seriously
believe in the reality of the strange inhabitants of
Alice's Wonderland, there is little necessity to insist
further on this aspect of the subject.
A systematic examination of the symbolical or
satyrical representations to be found on our misericords
would show that many of them are to be found with
precisely the same significations or train of thought
on the monuments of the earliest times of old Egypt,
and continued throughout her civilization. We have,
for example, on a papyrus of the nineteenth dynasty,
an ass and a lion singing to the accompaniment of a
lyre and of a harp on which they are playing ; a flock
of geese attacking and vanquishing a cat (as, on the
misericords, a cat is so frequently hanged by the geese) ;
a lion playing draughts with an antelope ; an army of rats
led by their general in a chariot, assaulting and taking
a fortress held by cats — and so on. We find this same
satire of the rats reversing the order of nature by taking
338
SYMBOLISM
the offensive, in a psalter of the thirteenth century,
attributed to Gui de Dampierre, in the Brussels library ;
and, in our day, in the hare going shooting, in ' Shock-
Headed Peter/ Nothing appeals more strongly to us
than a mocking of the foibles and miseries of human
life. And of all the animals, the one which has longest
in this way held our imagination is Reynard the fox,
who, on Egyptian papyrus, on the frescoes of Pompeii
and Herculaneum, in stall and on column, in painted
glass or pictured manuscript, stands for the embodiment
of cunning, duplicity, and hypocrisy. Nothing, of
course, is more natural than this comparison of the
good qualities and defects of man with the instincts
and habits of the lower animals. We assign to man in
the figure of the latter the courage of the lion, the
innocence and gentleness of the lamb, the dog's fidelity,
the suspicious and tricky fox, the silly goose, the dirty
pig. But the fantastic, the outrageously deformed and
impossible creatures, with eyes in the foreheads, with
head in the middle of their bodies, with arms or legs
of excessive disproportion, or the most monstrous mix-
tures of parts placed anyhow ; had these also lessons
to teach, or was it only the ingenuity of the draughts-
man, exercised to the utmost in devising something
hitherto unthought of which could be twisted into
allegory, or made merely to serve a purpose of
decoration ?
The earlier illuminated manuscripts, generally
speaking, confine the decoration to the intricate inter-
lacement of the capital letters and borders of the pages.
With the greater pictorial illustrations come also,
in the margins, figures with satirical applications,
animals and birds among the foliage, with no other
intention than beauty of ornament, groups and hunting-
subjects, and a certain amount of coarseness for which
the different manners of those times must account.
The grotesque began to be frequent about the tenth
339
WOOD SCULPTURE
century, and especially in the eleventh, when the fashion
was pushed to the utmost extreme of mingling, amongst
the floral and foliage ornament, the most impossible
figures of beings, neither human nor animal, composed
of limbs contorted and misplaced in every possible
way that a fanciful and often morbid imagination could
suggest. Assuredly this was not always for any
teaching value, but with a sheer purpose of distraction
and amusement.
In wood sculpture, the symbolical, other than that
which we associate generally with a Celtic origin, is
comparatively of late introduction. It is not until the
fifteenth century, perhaps, that we meet in it such
extravagances as those which became but too common,
such as the representation of the Almighty as an old man,
or as, on some misericords, an allusion to the Trinity
in a head with three faces, three heads crowned with
one crown, or three heads within one hood. Primitive
Christianity was undoubtedly still restrained by a fear
of infringement of the commandment against the
making of images. Lactantius, St. Clement of Alex-
andria, St. Augustine, and, in later times, St. Bernard,
have all inveighed against abuses which may result
from a want of perfect understanding. Fearful of
these abuses, the East, whence so much of our imagery
proceeds, hunted it out, and sent it to us.1
In the Middle Ages, the association of animal and
vegetable life with the expression of mystical ideas
became an absolute rage. The artist of those days, in
illuminated manuscript and in sculpture, was ever on the
lookout for methods of combining quaint imagery with
some underlying teaching. He twisted and adapted
pagan traditions to Christian dogmas, and ransacked
classical writings, such as those ot Aristotle and Pliny,
for ideas and semi-fabulous stories which would serve
1 * Nee ideo tamen quasi humana forma. . . , Tale enim 'simulacrum Deo
nefas est christiano in templo collocare.'— St. Augustine, Z>* JFtfc tt Svmtalo*
34°
MEDIEVAL ENCYCLOPEDIA
his purpose. In the course of the thousands of years
during which animal imagery had been used, this method
had become a science. It had its rules and interpreta-
tions, the meaning of which has since, to a great extent,
become lost, or overladen, from century to century,
with fresh accretions and adaptations. The animal
imagery of this science, which so frequently meets us
in the stalls, misericords, and bench-ends, is to be found
in the extensive literature which is known under the
name of Bestiary. If we desire to find the hidden
meaning and subtlety of the pictorial symbols we must
search these mediaeval encyclopedias. We must go to
such works also as the Speculum Universale of Vincent
de Beauvais, the Speculum Naturale, the Speculum
Doctrinale or Morale, the Speculum Historiale (or
History of the World from the Creation to the Last
Judgment), the Bestiaire d? Amours of Richard de
Furnival, the Speculum Ecclesicz of Honorius of
Antun. To name but a few amongst them ; The
' Mirror of the World,' of the thirteenth-century
Dominican Vincent de Beauvais, written by order of
St. Louis of France, is divided into four parts, the
Mirrors of Nature, of Science, of Morals, and of History,
Earlier still, in the beginning of the twelfth century,
Philip of Thaon had written, in England, a bestiary
from which much may be gathered. He explains and
illustrates the signification of the unicorn and the trick
by which it was to be caught. The unicorn is the
Almighty, the maid the Blessed Virgin, her lap the
Church. So also the favourite imagery of the siren,
which is frequent on misericords — the equivalent of
the mermaid, less intelligently used, up to quite late
times in England. The siren had the form of a woman,
a falcon's feet, a fish's tail : as a mermaid, with long
hair, a mirror and a comb, weeping in fine weather,
singing in a storm and deceiving the mariner, she
represents earthly treasures. The sea is the world, the
341
WOOD SCULPTURE
ship, man's body; the steersman, the soul. The rich
man oppresses the poor, and causes murders and ruin
and at this the siren rejoices, but if the rich man does
good she laments, and — as in fine weather — loses her
prey. At the same time, the mermaid was not invari-
ably a symbol of earthly things, or the allurements of
the flesh. Certainly, in Cornwall in the fourteenth
century, we find in it an allusion to the double nature
of Christ. We must not forget also such other
mediaeval literature as the Lapidaries, in which the pro-
perties and virtues attached to classical cameos and
precious stones or gems, and the subjects engraved
on them, are set forth.
Works of this kind were popular both from the
religious or secular aspect. Thus, in these treatises —
for example, in the Speculum Natnrale — we are taught
by beautiful descriptions of country life and the occu-
pations of the Christian year the reasons for choosing
the signs of the Zodiac and the mystical interpreta-
tions to be derived from them. We learn how the
seed is the Word of God ; the harvest, the end of the
world ; the threshing, the tribulation which visits the
sins of mankind. All the joyousness, too, of life is
expressed : the singing of birds, the whisperings of
trees, the sports and feastings, the pleasures of the
chase, and so on. It is the history of man fulfilling
his destiny. The symbolical representation of the
months and seasons is frequent in our choir sculpture.
A very common subject on misericords is winter* A
man — labourer, or perhaps a monk — warming his hands
by the fireside. Such a symbol is plain enough to
read. On the other hand, a more intimate acquaint-
ance with the hieroglyphic language is often called
for. A drinking horn held upright, horizontally, or
upside down, represents the beginning, middle, or end
of January, March is a barrel, or a Teg and a shuttle
for stocking-weaving time; July, a bunch of fruit;
342
SYMBOLISM
August, a hop-pole. Or, again, we may find these
indications scattered over a greater subject, so that our
ingenuity may always be on the stretch to discover
fresh clues towards unravelling the whole story or
teaching, hidden under what, at first sight, is no more
than a commonplace representation. Of all subjects,
that of the seasons is the favourite and most universal.
But the symbols employed vary considerably. In
France, January is indicated by a seated figure with
two heads ; July, a lion lashing his tail ; August, a
woman brushing out her long hair ; November, 2
hunter with bow and arrow ; December, a winged goat.
The origins of course are obvious. On a marble bas-
relief of the thirteenth century of the doorway of St.
Mark's, Venice, we have all the seasons expressed by
figures of men engaged in country occupations,
amongst foliage work, birds, vases, and the like.
Another illustration of this subject will be found in the
wooden watching-loft of the feretory of St. Albans,
carved with similar imagery. At the same time, it is
evident that while every possible occupation might be
twisted into this particular symbolism, it is not neces-
sary always to do so, unless in the case of a consecu-
tive series.
There was no doubt a considerable amount of
unintelligent copying without any particular intention,
and the attempt to attach a symbolical meaning to
every detail of church imagery may be easily exag-
gerated. Even when apparently obvious, as in the
case of the bishop's crook, the real origin is so com-
monplace that post hoc does not necessarily imply
propter hoc. The older carvings exhibit considerably
more decent gravity than the later ones. The tendency,
as time went on, towards an abuse of punning conceits
and humorous incidents without other meaning than
pure fun and a desire to amuse, and towards jokes
which are by no means in the most refined taste, is no
343
WOOD SCULPTURE
more than the freedom of manners of the time would
lead us to expect. With the changed ideas of propriety
of the present day, we must transport ourselves entirely
to mediaeval times before we can understand how the
taste for the satirical and grotesque originated, and
pervaded everything, even the sanctuary of the Church.
We must remember that the Church was the centre of
the life of the age in the smallest village as in the
greater cities. Towards it tended even the amusements
of the people. The Feast of Fools, with its irreverent
buffoonery, is an instance. It would be otherwise
difficult to imagine the frame of mind which permitted
the pages of pious books to be bordered with pictures
and figures of fabulous subjects, or, as is so often
the case, the subjects on misericords to be ironical
satires on the ministers of religion and even on the
mysteries of religion itself.
The Bestiary writers and, through them, the
carvers of misericords, went also to the fables of classi-
cal antiquity for inspiration. In these they found
typified the strength and courage of the lion, the
corrupting viciousness of the hyena, the spotless
purity and healing influence of the plover caladrius,
the wakefulness of the basilisk, and that every living
beast or bird could be transformed and adapted to
some human attribute. On a door of the cathedral of
Puy-en-Velay is a carved and painted tiger with a
movable tongue, which works by a counterpoise as the
door is opened. As a work of art it is admirable, but
for a moral application, could there be any ? Often,
no doubt, as in the illuminated MSS., the seeming
satires were purely gratuitous, and for the sake of
ornament. The artist followed, without knowledge,
perhaps, of symbolism, those who had preceded him,
One thing grew out of another. In initial letters it
was easy to distort the curves and other lines by a
stroke or two of the pen, a dot here and there, an eye
344
CARICATURE AND SATIRE
or a mouth which by some chance suggestion had a
kind of resemblance to the human or the animal The
Trinity with three heads might have originated in such
casual distractions. Certainly the nondescript figures,
such as those all heads and legs, or a head on one leg,
as on a misericord in the Tufton Street collection,
could have had no spiritual teaching.
From these early suggestions of animal or human
life, derived from chance combinations of lines, the
carver of stone and wood opened up, when the idea
reached him — which it seems not to have done before
the thirteenth century — a much larger and more public
field for the display of imagination. And still the
favourite subject on gargoyle or console, or partly
hidden beneath the choir-stairs movable seat is the
satire on the hypocrisy of the ill-regulated life of the
insincere religious : it may be intended to show that
the monk is, after all, but human and subject to the
same temptations and lapses as the man of the world.
But it was not only the dissolute priest, the debauched
or gormandizing monk, that was attacked ; in their
turn the feudal lord, oppressor of his serfs, the venal
judges, the sordid usurer, the dishonest tradesman or
innkeeper, come in for a more keen yet good-humoured
and tolerant castigation than the most outspoken press
of any age has ventured upon. And, underlying it all,
there is evidence of a struggle between the classes and
a hatred of the rich. Naturally the lady of fashion and
the exaggerations of feminine costume do not escape
the lash. A very common caricature to be found on
misericords in every country is the fine lady in the guise
of a sow, dressed in the latest fashion, steeple head-
dress and all, mounted on high stilts and playing a
harp. Another subject, dear to the artist and to the
sculptor of misericords, from the fifteenth century at
least, is the fight for the breeches — that is, between
man and wife, which of the two should prevail. It is
345
WOOD SCULPTURE
the story of Sire Hain and Dame Anieuse from the
romances of Hugues Piancelles. Or, again from the
romances, the history of Aristotle, so common on ivory
caskets and mirror cases ; the philosopher, on all fours,
ridden whip in hand by the offended beauty, pointing
the moral that tant com cis sikcles durera — there is no
fool like an old fool. Or, once more from the classics,
where Virgil is left hanging in his basket from the
lady's window, treated as the tales of Boccaccio love
to recount of frisky dames. But the most favourite
subject of all is the wily hypocrite, Reynard, attired as
a bishop, or as a hooded friar preaching to a congre-
gation of silly geese, ducks, fowls, or hares — up to as
many tricks as Tyll Owlglass. Yet none was more
full of varied moral teaching, as we learn from many
Bestiaries : for example from that of Philip de Thaon,
where he explains that ' Gulpilz ' (Vulpus) signifies the
devil in this life. When he finds people leading carnal
lives, he pretends to be dead and observing nothing till
they enter his evil mouth, when he slays and devours
them : so acts a real fox in attracting a bird.
What is absolutely incomprehensible to the modern
mind is to understand how the authorities in charge of
the religious edifices could have allowed to exist, always
before their eyes, representations of a kind, of which
not a few remain to this day, which outrage the most
elementary notions of decency. These are simply dis-
gusting, and could have served no moral purpose what-
ever. It is indeed difficult to conceive what was the
real object aimed at in these caricatures. Was it not
often nothing more than a superabundance of imagina-
tion, the delirious ravings of depraved minds, with no
other intention than to pander to the crowd ? Nothing
is more surprising in all the arts of the Middle
Ages than the taste for the horrible and the unnatural
side by side with the most refined appreciation of all
that is most beautiful in the real and in the ideal As
346
OBSCENITIES
Victor Hugo has said in his preface to Cromwell :
'They surrounded religion with a thousand original
superstitions, they invested piety with a thousand
picturesque imaginings/ Our stalls and misericords
show us the most tender feelings which nature inspires,
and as if to prevent our minds being always too highly
strung, or always in the same key, near by are depicted
the evil propensities of mankind, the hideous forms of
demons and of monstrous creations, a witches' Sabbath
of eccentric revels and a fearless exposure of the most
revolting obscenities. The misericord forms so im-
portant a part of our subject that it is necessary to
allude to these things without, however, going into
details. Every country can produce examples, but the
greatest offender — if we may judge from the number of
still existing specimens to be seen at such places as
Wai court or Hoogstraeten, would seem to be the
Netherlands, and the student who is curious on the
subject may be referred to the recently published works
on the grotesque in Church art by Maeterlinck and
Witkouski.
In other ways nothing is more instructive than the
part played by Flemish art in caricature and the
satirical. The fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries
abound in names, both in Flanders and in France,
which are common property in the world of fantastic
and extravagant satire — on monks and popes, on
priests and pedants, from Rabelais and the sayings of
Gargantua and Pantagruel, from Sebastian Brandt and
'the Ship of Fools/ or Jer6me Bosch, to the elder
Breughel whose method we find also imitated by our
own Hogarth. That our English misericords are
closely related to the Flemish can hardly be questioned,
Not infrequently the carvers themselves were probably
Flemish. The Flemings themselves undoubtedly drew
the inspiration for their misericords from manuscripts
of much earlier date : for example, the eighth-century
347
WOOD SCULPTURE
gospel book of Maesych, itself inspired from more
ancient Gallo-Belgic sources. As other origins, we
have, among the old Flemish and French romances,
the Enid of Henri Van Veldeke of the twelfth century,
the Romance of Troy, the Quest of the San Graal, the
Gestes d'Alexandre (thirteenth century), the Chanson
d'Antioche of Richard of Flanders, the stories of Tristan,
of Lancelot, of Merlin, and the Mirror of Wisdom : all
these, and many other dits and conies, and hundreds of
similar mixtures of didactic satire and mysticism, in
prose and verse, the joy of our mediaeval forefathers,
were laid under contribution and must be borne in
mind in the study of misericords. The same ideas
persisted until quite into the sixteenth century. In
the choir of the church of St. Sebaldus at Ntirnberg
there is a frieze in wood attributed to Veit Stoss, in
which we have a dispute between the devil and one of
the blessed for a human soul. It is a procession of
naked figures, representing popes, cardinals, and bishops,
to the gates of Heaven, where St. Peter receives them ;
and in another part of the composition a naked figure
is being dragged by demons to the mediaeval repre-
sentation of hell as an open-mouthed monster.
In our more prosaic age, for the proper under-
standing of these things, it is necessary to throw
ourselves completely into the spirit of the Middle Ages,
when, if the chief idea of the master builder was
beauty of form and proportion, the controlling powers
of the Church compelled him to carry them out in
accordance with the teaching idea. Everything must
have a didactic end : the crucial disposition of the nave
and transepts, the vaulted roof, the towers and steeples,
and the thousand other details of every part of the
edifice. The field is still open for a comprehensive
treatise on misericords : that is to say, on the whole
subject taken by itself, and its story as told in various
countries. It has, necessarily, the closest connexion
348
EARLY CHOIR STALLS
with wood sculpture, but as, notwithstanding destruc-
tions and restorations, these carvings still abound
everywhere in infinite variety, it would be out of the
question, within our limits, to do more than to refer to
it in general terms.
It has already been pointed out that the origin of
stall-work is obscure, and even if we may connect it,
roughly speaking, with the date of our earliest
examples, there are few remains of the work of the
thirteenth century, and fewer still of the fourteenth :
none, I think, of the latter period in France. In the
fifteenth they become frequent enough, and in the
sixteenth, the Renaissance introduces an entirely new
system of ornament with which it is not, for the
present, proposed to deal. Stall-work of the thirteenth
century is rare in any country. In France the only
existing examples are those of Poitiers, of Saint-
Andoche de Saulieu, of N. D. de la Roche, near
Chdveuse, in the department of Seine-et-Oise, and
possibly of Lisieux. Germany has some remains in
the church of Saint Gereon at Cologne, and at Xanten ;
Flanders, at Celles and Hasti&re near Dinant, and
in the churches of Saint Jacques and Sainte Croix at
Li6ge; and in Switzerland there are some extremely
interesting remains at Lausanne, This early stall-
work is all, to a certain extent, fragmentary, and has
been subject to alterations and additions. The same
remark applies to that of our English choirs attributed
to the thirteenth century. In England, especially,
the devastations at the time of the Reformation, and
the neglect and bad taste of later times, have left us
little else but the misericords. Of these we have, in
the first place, the fine set at Exeter which, if we may
accept the date which it is usual to assign to them,
may rank possibly as the most ancient in existence.
Besides these, there are early examples at Chichester,
and at Hemingborough, Yorks, a few at Fordham in
349
WOOD SCULPTURE
Cambridgeshire, three at • Chris tchurch, Hants, and
one at Westminster amongst the others of much later
date, and three at Sutton Courteney, Berks.
The stalls of Poitiers, numbering seventy, as they
exist at present, are of oak, the ornamentation in
general characterized by the simplicity and refinement
of the golden age of Gothic art. They are usually
supposed to date from the year 1239, and ascribed to
Jean de Moldon, or de Melun, the bishop of the die ese
then reigning, but if he died in that year they would
be in that case still earlier. Those of Notre Dame de
la Roche, again seventy in number, are of the same
character, but unfortunately in a mutilated and badly
restored condition, and were made, it is supposed, by
the same Bishop Jean de Melun, of whose death, the
date just given is quite uncertain. The workmanship
is again somewhat rudimentary, but the simple design
of slender columns, plain fenestrations, and purity of
style give them the highest historical interest in con-
nexion with the early forms and decoration of choir
stalls. The same applies to the fragments remaining
at Saint-Andoche de Saulieu. They are of the last
years of the thirteenth century, a period of transition,
when the huchier was beginning to work on more
independent lines. He was no longer contented to
use only the charming window tracery, of which he had
become a master, in the furniture of the period, in his
panelling and in the chests and coffers already referred
to and illustrated. He was beginning, as we find here,
to enrich his work with figures in low relief and with
statues and statuettes and scenes from the Old and
New Testaments on the outer sides of his stall-ends,
the other surfaces covered with foliage work and
imaginary animals. Yet throughout it all was a note
of restraint and simplicity distinguishing it from the
over profusion of detail which reigned in the following
century. The same system continues to prevail in the
35°
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WILARS DE HONECOURT
stall-work of Lisieux — a similar refined ornamentation
in the end-panels of openworked foliage and of animals'
heads in the misericords.
With these two early examples of choir stalls we
may connect those of St. Gereon at Cologne and the
early stalls, now removed and replaced by later ones,
of the cathedral of Lausanne. To go no further than
these two churches, we have in that most delightful
sketchbook of Wilars de Honecourt, designs for and
a description of the terminating standard of a range
of stalls of similar design to the stalls of St. Gereon,
and a sketch of two men wrestling, which has so
much analogy with a bas-relief on a poupde standard
at Lausanne that the connexion with the thirteenth-
century architect seems evident. What would be of
importance to determine is the part which the designs
of Wilars played in connexion with the stalls of
Lausanne, or whether, on the other hand, the sketches
were made from, or from recollection of, the already
existing stalls. The subject cannot here be followed
in detail. It must suffice to refer the reader to the
dissertations on the Sketch-Book by MM. Quicherat,
Lassus, Darcel, and Willis, the last of whom pub-
lished it in 1859 in facsimile, with an English transla-
tion of the notes of Lassus and references to the
others. Our illustrations are taken from the fac-
similes. On the verso of the twenty-seventh leaf we
have : ' Fesci une legi&re poupfe d'uns estans a i entreclos
a tote le clef' That is, ' Here is an easily made poupge
for a stall with one partition with the clef/ The
drawing represents the carved high standard which
terminates a range of stalls and the ordinary partition,
<x par close, which separates every stall from its neigh-
bour. On the twenty-ninth leaf is another and richer
design to which the word poupde is applied. This
shows that, in the descriptive title just quoted, the
designates the standard, and consequently
WOOD SCULPTURE
entreclos is the partition. From this we may deduce
that the florid ornament to which, in England, the
terms ' poppy ' and ' poppy head ' have been applied,
can only claim the latter as being the head of the
former. The clef of the entreclos is the richly moulded
cap which receives and supports it, and is curved back-
wards to form a convenient elbow and leaning place —
in modern French joinery terms the museau or nosing.
Lassus remarks that this poupge is of the same form
as in the stalls of St Gereon with only the difference
that in the latter a statue is added in front of the
double volutes (Wilson). The recto of the twenty-
ninth leaf on which is the drawing of a more elaborate
poupde has : 'Si vus volez bien ovrer dune bone poup&e
pour une estaule a cesti vus tenes* ; that is — * If you
wish to make a very fine poupde for a stall you may
take this design/ We have here, then, examples of a
legibre poupde easy to make and of a bone poupfa which
means one in which nothing is spared in the way of
elaboration of design and of workmanship. It is to
such an example as the latter that those of Lisieux and
N. D. de la Roche have analogy.
The ancient stalls of Lausanne, after having suffered
much neglect for many years, are now reduced to ten
and, without their misericords, preserved in the
chateau of Chillon. There are many large figures on
the panels of the parcloses, besides the wrestlers, and
these, together with the foliage openwork, though
boldly designed and vigorously executed in oak, and
inspired by French models of the thirteenth century,
lack their spirit and grace. What may have been due
to Wilars it is impossible to say, ' I have been in
many lands, as this book shows/ he writes in his
album, and he was certainly at Lausanne, for it con-
tains a sketch of the rose window of the cathedral.
He may, then, have sketched also the wrestlers of
the stalls.
352
GERMAN STALL WORK
A few words only can be given to the stall work of
Germany, although this is in many ways of consider-
able importance. Otte, in his Handbuch der Kirch-
lichen Kunstarchdologie (see Bibliography), gives a
very long list of that still existing, amongst which the
stalls of Xanten, Cologne, and Marburg may date back,
perhaps, to the thirteenth century. At Xanten we find
on the joules a similar system of simple conventional
foliage work to that of the example of a bone poupde in
the album of Wilars de Honecourt, which has already
been noticed and illustrated. At Cologne two joutes
are terminated by full-length figures of St. Gereon and
St. Ursula. Didron (Ann. archdoL ix. 130) — very un-
justly, I think — compares these figures most unfavour-
ably with the work of the sculptor of the stalls of
Poitiers. He condemns the drapery broken up into
folds, and as if rudely chopped out with a knife, the
wooden-doll-like limbs, the coarse heads, and so on.
There are excellent reproductions in the gallery of casts
in the Kensington Museum, and judging even from
these — admitting the French inspiration, and that the
German artist may not have completely caught the
French feeling of the period in all its elegance — it
should be impossible to deny their general charm, the
sweetness of the head of St. Ursula, the grace of the
attitudes and tlie whole spirit, entirely of the period.
Long after almost every description of sculpture
was beginning to abandon itself with docility to
the influence of the Renaissance, wood-carving in
Germany, as we have seen, and especially for stall work,
still remained faithful to Gothic traditions. The
great influx of German sculptors into Italy, and their
residence there, could not have failed to have consider-
able influence. So it is, perhaps, that even there, so
late as 1464, the stalls of Pienza are still Gothic, and
at Assisi we find the same foliage-volute poupdes as
those to which attention has just been drawn*
z 353
WOOD SCULPTURE
The stall work of the Netherlands, however inter-
esting, must give way to considerations of space, of
which other classes of its woodrcarving have already
occupied a considerable proportion. Amongst the finest
examples of the fifteenth century are those of Diest
(1491), and above all the admirable, but unfortunately
incomplete, set of the church of Saint Pierre, at Louvain.
But, everywhere, a good deal of the fine panelling of
the choirs with the canopied dais has been removed in
compliance with the new taste of the seventeenth,
eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. Aerschot
formerly possessed some marvellously fine Gothic stalls,
but about 1833 the upper parts were taken off and sold.
Those who are acquainted with the little church of
Gatton in Surrey will remember the panelling filling
it, which is of the finest period of pointed tertiary.
This, with the stalls, is said to have been acquired in
Belgium in the early part of last century. Possibly
it might be traced to Aerschot. The very fine choir
and stall work of Holland can also, for the present, be
briefly mentioned only. A great deal is late fifteenth
and sixteenth century Gothic. Such, for example, is
the splendid carving of the stalls of the Broederkerk
atBolsward, of the Hervormdekerk of Breda (\htjcweds
especially), of the Grootekerk of Dordrecht, and, of the
late transitional style, of the Grootekerk at Haarlem,
with its fine figure sculpture, grotesques, foliage and
flower -work, and the great and elaborately carved
churchwardens' pew of twelve seats.
It seems generally to be agreed nowadays to apply
the term misericord to the carved subjects or ornaments
beneath the supplementary support of the seat of a
choir stall Were it not that the expression has be-
come accepted, a more correct one, perhaps, would be
the corbel, or bracket, for their function is to support
the misericord itself. From the veiy beginning of the
system they have been taken over and over again from
354
MISERICORDS
the stone sculpture of the period, or of earlier dates —
from the capitals of pillars, from busts, culs-de-lampe,
or brackets with parallel sides. If not always directly
derived from these — for there is equally to be observed
a remarkable originality — they are identical in feeling,
in variety, and in execution, and in the case of grotesques
and moral lessons the resemblance is absolute. There
is one very striking difference between the style or form
of the ornamentation in England and on the Continent.
In England, instead of being so essentially in bracket
form, the subjects are spread out on either side, and
these extensions have been given the name of supporters,
side lobes, cusps, or volutes. I do not know that this
difference in style between our own and the Continental
practice has been before alluded to by writers on the
subject. So far as my own observation goes, though
we have examples in England of misericords without
such supporters (Mr. E. S, Prior says that it was not
until about 1330 that the practice came in), abroad they
are not found at all, or at least only in such elementary
forms as in a misericord at Albi, where there is no
central subject but only heads or masks at the ex-
tremities of the scrolled edge. The Victoria and
Albert Museum has until quite recently been, with
the exception of one small fragment, entirely destitute
of any example of a misericord, either English or
foreign. In 1910, however, some sixteen specimens, of
one character or set, were presented by Mr. FitzHenry.
Their previous history, or, as we may say, £tat civil,
is entirely unknown. They are at present officially
described as English, fifteenth-century work. We have
in them, at least, examples of the bracket, or corbel-
form of misericord ornament, without supporters or
ornamental side lobes. Without, however, taking this
factor into account at all, there would seem to be little
to support such an ascription as an English origin.
The shape of the seats themselves, in plan, does not
355
WOOD SCULPTURE
correspond with the systems followed in England, and
something also might be said of the form of the hinges.
As to the subjects, the style and treatment are inferior
and wanting in the feeling and didactic applications
which were usual On the whole, notwithstanding
the venerable and much worm-eaten appearance, there
must still remain grave reason to doubt the genuine-
ness. In default of documentary evidence and bearing
in mind a prevailing habit of copying from already
existing sculpture, the dates of our earliest misericords
— such, for example, as those of Exeter — are so un-
certain that the question of the addition of the volutes is
not without considerable importance. Types or orna-
ment, and even costumes and armour form no infallible
criteria. There was doubtless a persistence in their
use, and anachronisms, especially in remote districts,
would not perhaps have been considered of importance.
It is neither called for, nor would it be possible to
follow these subjects, here, in a systematic or exhaustive
way. It will suffice to summarize a few of the most
striking amongst them. As might naturally be ex-
pected from the position which these carvings occupy,
sacred scenes or figures of holy personages are unusual.
Still, they are to be found, and some of this class may
first of all receive attention : —
Scriptural and other sacred subjects. — At Gayton there
are many, including Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, the
decollation of St. John, St. Ursula, the three Maries at the
Sepulchre, the Last Judgment. At Gloucester, the Shepherds
and the Star in the East. At Chester, the Coronation of the
B.V.M, At Lincoln, the Ascension, the Visit of the Magi,
the Resurrection, the Assumption. At Ely, the Temptation
in the Wilderness- At other places the above are repeated,
together with others : Worcester holding the record, perhaps,
for scriptural, chiefly Old Testament, subjects, and Lincoln for
legends of the B.V.M. Three faces or heads joined together,
or within the same hood, as in the Collegiate Church of Cham-
356
MISERICORDS
peaux m France, are fairly frequent, and may have some
connexion with the doctrine of the Trinity. At Cockington
we find the Evangelists with their emblems, on misericords
which are of high interest as typical of English figure work of
the time. St. George, of course, occurs, and the legend of the
dragon ; St. Margaret, St. Martin dividing his cloak, St. Giles
and his hind, St. Werburgh, St. Mildred, and, without pretend-
ing to complete the list, St. Veronica and the miraculously
imprinted handkerchief.
Trades and occupations. — These subjects are very common,
and many of them similarly treated in all countries, especially
that of the hucher or menuisier carving or working at his
bench, as on the very early misericords at Poitiers, or the carver's
own portrait as at Amiens and Ulm. At All Saints, Welling-
borough (i4th century), he wears a tippet fastened with a rose-
like brooch, the sleeves of his doublet puffed at the shoulders.
A table is in front of him, and he is carving a rose. To name
but a few others, we have the carver or carpenter at the church
of Saint Martial, Bordeaux, and at Presles (Seine-et-Oise), at
Brampton a carver and a tailor, at Great Malvern a physician
and a sick man, at St. David's boatbuilders at work, at Corbeil
and Rouen a cobbler.
Fox preaching and satires against the clergy. — This very
favourite satirical subject, with Reynard as a monk, a bishop, or
a preacher, in endless variety, is common everywhere. At
Windsor we find him with stolen geese in his hood (in his cowl>
it is but too frequently the custom wrongly to call it) ; at
Beverley, Nantwych, and other places, the stolen geese again ;
at Boston, as a bishop preaching to poultry and rabbits; at
Bristol an ape, serving as clerk, has caught one of the fowls,
while a number of geese in the back row are asleep as the
sermon proceeds ; at Windsor, an ape, wearing a stole, is
blessing a dog ; at Saint Exup&re, Corbeil, there is, or was, a
bishop with a fool's bauble ; at Kempen, a peasant is smash-
ing a quantity of eggs with a flail — a satire against the mendi-
cant friars. Retaliation frequently occurs, as at Sherborne,
where the fowls hang the fox, or the rats the cat. Satire in
connexion with religion was naturally embittered in Reforma-
tion times. At Toulouse, on a misericord of 1566, Calvin is
represented as a pig preaching.
Saraceris head* — This reminiscence of the Crusaders per-
357
WOOD SCULPTURE
sisted long after the last of these was concluded. At Rothwell,
late in the fifteenth century, we find the turbaned Paynim with
the flowing locks and curly beards which are usual : also at
Tilney and Bishops Stortford of the same period. At Ling-
field nearly all the eight remaining stalls have some connexion
with the Saracen. One is of the foliated-face type. In another
the ends of the turban flow out behind the stars with which the
stalks of the volutes end. The Wodehouse, or Wildman, is
also frequently met with ; for example, in the mid-fourteenth
century stalls of Lincoln.
The zodiacal signs, or emblems of the month, occur at
Brampton, Huntingdon (1400), where amongst those remain-
ing, we have hay-cutting and corn-harvesting; at Exeter, with
Sagittarius : the two heads in a hood at Worle, a man emptying
two huge jugs for rainy January, and sitting over the fire for
February, and emblems of the rest of the months at Ripple,
and innumerable others both in England and throughout the
Continent.
Grotesques and human headed birds. — We find the latter
frequently in all countries — in England, at Exeter and at
Lingfield, for example. Their classical origin can scarcely be
doubtful ; evolved perhaps from a suggestion such as we find
in a Tanagra figure, where a naked child sitting on the ground
holds a goose by the head under his arm, giving the effect that
the child's smiling head is that of the goose. As a matter of
fact, no other compound of human and animal figures is more
naturally convincing and suggestive than the human head on
a bird's body. Other monstrous anomalies abound every-
where.
Games and the school are, of course, illustrated by many
examples of chess and draughts, by blindman's buff ( Bristol),
by hot cockles, by schoolboys playing at ball (Glo'ster), and so
on ; and condign punishment is meted out to unruly boys in
many ways, amusingly treated, as at Sherborne or Rouen.
Dancing and posturing. — At All Souls College, Oxford
(1442), where the work is unusually good, we have examples
of contortionists, and in many other places the acrobat, or the
elastic-faced man appears, the latter, for instance, at Ulm. Or
again, there is "Our Lady's tumbler, " the poor monk, once a
posturer, who, having no other talent, was found displaying his
art, .as the best thing he had, before her image-
358
MISERICORDS
Costume. — The information with regard to costume is end-
less and full of interest. As, however, in other cases, such as
the armour on sepulchral effigies, it is not always to be im-
plicitly relied on as evidence for dating. We find the horned
headdress at Saint Mary's Minster in the Isle of Thanet, and
at Ludlow ; the hair in nets of the time of Richard IL, and at
Beverley the scalloped sleeves of the men's costume of the
time of Jack Cade's insurrection. The stalls at Ely were,
according to some authorities, erected by Bishop Alan de
Walsingham in 1332, but in the misericord with the story of
Herodias we have a style of ladies* hairdressing which did not
come in till early fifteenth century : no doubt a later addition.
It is not to be forgotten also that fashions were frequently
exaggerated and caricatured.
Furniture and objects of domestic interest. — These, together
with scenes in the life of the middle classes, of the villager, or
of the monk, are no less fascinating than the illustrations of the
court, the chase, the tournament and military affairs which also
abound. It is true that on misericords they are usually single
figures and on a small scale. There is not the space for such
perspective scenes as are to be found on the parcloses and/w^s
of Amiens, which constitute a complete encyclopaedia of illustra-
tion of the ordinary bourgeois life at the end of the mediaeval
period : architecture, within and without, chairs, tables, benches,
sideboards, plate and crockery, buffets, wardrobes, prie-Dieu,
mirrors, altarpieces, kitchen utensils, costumes, implements of
trade and occupations of all kinds. The designers and carvers
seem to have done for us what the bas-reliefs of ancient Egypt
and the custom of sealing up in tombs objects of daily use
have done to assist our knowledge of far-off days.
There is, of course, any amount of fun and humour in these
carvings. For those who possessed no printed and illuminated
books, for whom even a Biblia Pauperum was a rarity to be
inspected occasionally, they answered several purposes- They
were the Punchs and Charivaris and even the Pasquinades of
those days, and the satirical lash fell heavily at times. For
pure fun we have such things as the devil carrying off the dis-
honest alewife (St. David's, 1470) ; the three men in a boat — one
of them, a monk, very sick ; family quarrels — a woman chastis-
ing her husband with a ladle ; the fight for the breeches, the
symbol of domestic authority, as in the story of Sire Hain and
359
WOOD SCULPTURE
Dame Anieuse at Rouen ; innumerable instances of animals
turning the tables on men and subduing instead of being
governed by them ; and moral lessons conveyed by jest and
caricature over and over again. The manners of the age were
coarser than they are now, but beyond coarseness (and there is
not very much even of that) in England, at any rate, there is
no longer any existing example of absolute obscenity. Our
humour in that way goes no farther than a suggestion, as at
Malvern or Hereford (1409), where a man appears to be
making rather free with a cook.
Foliage faces. — In the fifth leaf of the album of Wilars de
Honecourt there are some sketches of a fantastic application of
foliage to the human face, which was much in favour in sculp-
ture of the period, and afterwards frequently found on miseri-
cords. A foliage head is simply a human head in full face, the
hair, eyebrows, and beard transformed into leaves, or, some-
times, flamelike additions. The elementary forms of foliage are
adapted from natural types into a curly, hirsute resemblance— in
Wilar's sketches from a fig-leaf [Plate LIT.]. The fashion has, no
doubt, a pagan origin. There are several interesting examples
at Lingfield, Surrey. On one the beard is leaf-shaped, and
from the eyes proceed some fanciful additions, tressed like an
ear of corn. And again, in the early misericords of St
Mary's Hospital at Chichester we have flamelike leaves curv-
ing upwards from beneath the eyes, with a small * supporter '
on each side in the form of a sunflower with a human face for
the centre. This conceit continued to be a favourite one until
late Renaissance times, as we find, for instance, in the woodwork
of about 1580 in the Benedictine abbey of Ochsenhausen.
If we consider the sources from which so much of
the wood-carving was inspired, and the crystallizing in
the course of ages of the popular stories of all times,
we shall be prepared to find that the Folklore is also
profusely illustrated. It is not easy, in all cases, to
trace these sources, or to be quite certain of the real
meaning of some which still seem to present insoluble
enigmas. One of the many which occur — too numer-
ous to specify more particularly — may serve as an
example. Among the very fine series of misericords of
360
MISERICORDS
^ stalls of Worcester there is a subject which, with
variations, is found frequently also in all countries.
It is that of a woman riding on a ram, with one foot on
the ground, naked, except for a net over her shoulders,
a rabbit under her arm. Until recently, this has
usually been understood as an ancient punishment for
incontinence, a woman being compelled to ride thus
through the streets. But the real story is drawn from
Folklore, as is shown by Mr. D. S. MacColl in a paper
in the Burlington Magazine for October 1907. It is
variously applied in different countries. In Scottish
folklore it is the story of ' Diarmid and Graine ' — a
riddle contest, the wit game so common in early times
(see Popular Tales of the IVest Highlands, by J. R
Campbell, vol. i. No. 60). The gist of the riddle, under
its many variations, is that the woman is to be not
clothed, not naked, not riding, not walking, not in the
road, and not out of the road. So she strips, wraps
herself in a fishing-net and ties herself to a donkey's
tail, which drags her through the ruts of the road with
one foot on the ground. We find the woman and the
goat in a sculpture in the cathedral of Lyon. But here
she has not one foot on the ground, the goat has a
human face and she is whirling a dog or a cat with one
hand. The rabbit has still to be explained. At Amiens
the ' Fine Lady ' of one of the stalls is petting a rabbit
in her arms. This has been thought to typify the
frivolity and frolicsomeness of women of her class.
For beauty of design the volutes of misericords,
peculiar to England, have more character than the prin-
cipal subjects themselves. In many cases the execution is
masterly, and exhibits an understanding of the qualities
of wood as distinguished from the technique of stone
sculpture, and, in general, it is finest in foliage work.
The origin of thus adding ornamental supporters is
still open to conjecture. In the earliest misericords it
seems to have begun with a head, or a simple flower or
361
WOOD SCULPTURE
leaf on a short stalk, as we find at Chichester or Exeter.
It was only natural that the idea should be extended,
sometimes, indeed, in an extravagant way. It is, after
all, merely a decorative addition to the simple console.
Still it is puzzling that the practice should have origin-
ated and have been adopted only in England. The
form of the rest tablet itself varies considerably in
length, depth, and outline. In England it is much
wider and altogether larger than on the Continent,
where, for example, at Ulm, Auch, Saumur or Xanten,
the bracket is quite small and compact, with often only
a single figure, bust, or small ornament. Sometimes
the corbel subject is (as at Winchester Cathedral) about
the same size, or smaller, than those in the volutes,
and as the latter are frequently the better executed of
the two, we may suppose that they represent the work
of more than one artist. In some cases the subjects
are independent of each other, but, as a rule, the side
ones have some reference to the central and principal
one. Shields of arms, medallions, cyphers, monograms,
and rebuses are common. More rarely, but still to be
met with (as at New College, Oxford), there are whole-
length figures at the terminations of the volutes. A
commonly found bracket to the patience rest is a man,
grotesquely figured and attired in a girded tunic.
Sometimes, as at St Mary's Hospital, or at Wells,
he is head downwards, his hands spread out, his back
upholding the tablet, his legs merged into the leaf-
scrolls of the volutes. Or, for a foreign example, as at
Saumur, where, with arms and legs spread-eagle
fashion, and head thrown back, he supports the miseri-
cord on his chin. Or, again, at Chichester, it is a
merman, in a crouching position, holding his tail in
one hand. In the Victoria and Albert Museum there
is a corbel or bracket-like carving in wood from the
Maskell collection, no doubt at one time a misericord.
It is of the fourteenth or fifteenth century ; English
362
FRENCH CHOIR STALLS
work representing the Assumption, the Virgin in an
aureole or vesica-shaped border, borne up by angels,
and beneath, a kneeling monk. Said to have come
from Malmesbury Abbey, it is crude, untaught work,
an example of monks' amateur efforts, the artist having
evidently been inspired in the details from older sources
which he found to hand : for example, in the style of
the trees, which go back to early Christian methods.
It is interesting to observe that, if a misericord, it is
painted. Few of these retain even traces of colour, but
this will be found, for example, on the very interesting
ones at Cockington in Devon. For some reason or
another, our museum at Kensington has never acquired
a specimen of a misericord, English or foreign. Nor
are there any examples of the carved woodwork of the
English rood-screens, although in mid-nineteenth cen-
tury and later still they might have been had for the
asking. There are a few misericords of considerable
interest in the architectural museum at Tufton Street,
but these have long been left kicking about on the floor
of the gallery and exposed to great neglect, from which
it is high time they were rescued.
There remains space for a few summary remarks
on stalls in France, which present points of special
interest : —
Poitiers, c. 1239 to 1257. There are seventy stalls, for the
most part foliage work of fine character ; many fantastic animals ;
a carver measuring with a compass ; moralities symbolized as at
Amiens.
N. D. de la Roche (near Chevreuse). Perhaps the ^ most
ancient ; very plain slender columns ; charming simplicity of
the foliage work.
Saint- Andoche de Saulieu. Last years of thirteenth cen-
tury ; epoch of transition ; but continuing to be a model of
elegant simplicity,
N. D, de Brou (Ain). A fine series with innumerable
figures of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, saints. Strong Flemish
influence, but the work of French sculptors.
363
WOOD SCULPTURE
Pontigny (Yonne). Remarkable for variety of natural his-
tory illustration : flowers, fruit, vegetables, insects.
Anellan. Fifteenth century. Elegant simplicity.
Chaise-Dieu (Auvergne). Early fifteenth century; rich
and naturalistic ; grotesques with much irreverence ; a donkey
playing the organ; astonishing variety. Attributed to the
monks of Chaise-Dieu.
Saint-Claude (Jura, 1455). Monstrous animals, scenes and
tableaux ; some obscenities ; by Jean de Vi&ry.
Rouen (1457-1469). There were eighty-six stalls: now
mostly destroyed ; here, probably, was the beginning of the
fashion of elaborate scenes and grotesques which culminated in
many great series of choir stalls at the beginning of the six-
teenth century. Paul Mosselmen was working at Bourges on
the monument of the Due de Berri when called to Rouen for
this work. The style may be called Flemish Burgundian (see
Langlois, F, H., Stalles de la cath. de Rouen, 1838).
Lisieux. Fourteenth century. Fifty-six stalls. Cf. Wilars
de Honecourt.
Auch (1529). Very rich and fine example of transition
period.
Others to be noticed are Rodez, Saint Bertrand de
Comminges (Renaiss,), Champeaux, Salins, Orbais, Solesmes.
Toulouse. Saint-Martin au Bois, Chfiteaudun, Venddme,
Andelys. Tr6o. Saint - Ben6it - sur - Loire, Reims, Lyon,
Alengon, Mantes, Alby, Mortain, Toul.
It is impossible to go further and to make a choice
amongst so many throughout the country.
The choirs and stall work of Italy are so intimately
associated with the rise and progress of the Renaissance
that the consideration of them must remain for special
treatment in that connexion. This must be said, of
course, without prejudice to the fact that certain choir
work — for example, that of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei
Frari at Venice, by Marco da Vicenza, and so late as
1468 — may be entirely Gothic. We have to avoid also
for the present the extensive subject of tarsia work and
its mixture with the fine carved stalls by the sculptors
of northern Italy, as we find it at Perugia or at Siena,
364
SPANISH CHOIR STALLS
Names of sculptors, also, would be found more fre-
quently in Italy : for instance, the Da Basio in the late
fourteenth century at Ferrara ; the Majano, the Barili
and many others. Italy is, indeed, impossible to con-
dense in a chapter. In a general way, also, the influence
exerted by a centre to which the artists of every other
country gravitated, and from which they returned home
laden with ideas, is over and over again apparent.
Spain, on the other hand, has been a borrower only
and never a teacher. France, Flanders, Germany, Italy
were all laid under contribution. This is not to say
that the magnificent silleria of her cathedrals and
collegiate churches do not call for attention, and are
not worthy of our admiration. The retables of Seville,
of Toledo, of Burgos, of Palencia, of Saragossa have
their complements in the stall work of Vigarny, of
Berruguete, Becerra, Dancart, Doncel, of Martin and
Nufrio Sanchez, of Hernandez, or of Juan de Juni ; at
Palencia, Granada, Toledo, San Marcos of Leon, or
Plasencia ; in that of the Cartuja of Burgos, of the Seo
of Saragossa and of numbers more besides. Of many
of these, indeed, it may be said again, in the picturesque
language of Th^ophile Gautier, which in this case we
need not attempt to translate, that they show "une
verve indpuisable, une abondance inouie, une invention
perpetuelle dans 1'idde et dans la forme; un monde
nouveau, une creation i part, oil les hommes fleurissent,
ou le rameau se termine par une main et la jambe par
un feuillage, o<i la chim&re i Toeil surnois ouvre ses ailes
ongle^s, oft le dauphin monstrueux souffle 1'eau par ses
fosses, Cest un enlacement inextricable de fleurons,
de rinfeaux, d'acanthes, de lotus, de fleurs aux calices
orn^s cTaigrettes et de vrilles, de feuillages dentelds et
couronnds d'oiseaux fabuleux, de poissons impossibles,
de sir&nes et de dragons extravagants, dont aucune
langue ne peut donner 1'id^e, C'est le genre pa'ien de la
renaissance — ces enfants qui jouent avec des masques,
365
WOOD SCULPTURE
femmes qui dansent, gladiateurs qui luttent, paysan en
vendange, jeunes filles tourmentant ou caressant un
monstre fantastique, petits mannekens-pisse."
There is no doubt a certain amount of exaggeration
and invention in this description. Yet it is strongly
suggestive, and might be applied not only to work of
this kind in Spain, but also to much with which we
have just been occupied in France, in Germany and
elsewhere. Was the intense richness and variety of
this kind of work overdone ? It is not altogether
improbable that the same rich superabundance charac-
terized our English choir ornament of the fifteenth
century. But mainly, perhaps, as the result of the
iconoclastic destructions which accompanied the accom-
plishment of the Reformation, our choirs of to-day are
reduced to the correct sobriety of the pinnacled and
canopied architecture, with the misericords hidden away
when the seats are turned down, some grotesque
museaux, here and there, and the absence of any but
the most simple joules or parcloses. There is no
impression now of a riotous imagination in sculp-
tured detail, no realistic or fanciful reconstruction of
the animal and vegetable worlds, no panoramas of
mediaeval civil and domestic life. Yet who will deny
the grandeur of the simplicity which an apparently
ruthless destruction has left us in such typical examples
as we may find at Exeter, at Windsor, at Lincoln or
at Chester ?
As Mr E. S. Prior has pointed out, ' the home of
the wood-carver lay doubtless in the woodland centre
of England where a carpenter's craft of oak-building
had grown to maturity on the borders of the great
forests of Sherwood, Charnwood and Rockingham/
As in other countries this carpenter's craft in the
first half of the thirteenth century was still but a
reflection of the art of the stone cutter. Nor could we
afford to be dependent only on our own resources,
366
ENGLISH CHOIRS
The foreigner had to be called in, and, in particular,
numbers of Flemish artists came over and settled
amongst us in the reign of King Edward m.
The arrangement of choir stalls, as we find them
to-day, differs from that adopted on the Continent,
the lower range being simply benches without divisions
into stalls. This is no doubt due to rearrange-
ments in post-Reformation times for the accommoda-
tion of choir boys, and to the provision of seats
for vicars-choral in receipt of stall wages when their
masters, by whom they were engaged as understudies,
occupied their stalls themselves. It would seem,
also, that in the last Gothic times of the fifteenth
century it was more usual to support the canopies by
a system of slender columns than to leave them
unsupported as abroad. But both systems existed in
Tudor times : for example, at Chester, where the
magnificently complicated work of light and airy
pinnacled tabernacles has canopies, unsupported, over
each stall On the other hand, Windsor, Lincoln,
Westminster, Ripon, and many others are of the
columnar type. The famous chapel of King's College,
Cambridge, is remarkable as an example of Tudor
Gothic in which the earlier system of small columns
supporting the canopies of the upper ranges of stalls
was replaced in 1530 by baluster supports of pure
Renaissance style, all exactly similar, and the canopy
work was altered, to be still further altered in the
last quarter of the seventeenth century. And, indeed,
what still remains of the native Gothic is overpowered
and killed by the parasitic overgrowth of the exotic
elements. The alterations in all our great cathedrals
and churches have been, of course, considerable.
When, indeed, we examine such records as we may
find in the illustrations to the descriptive works,
of which so many were published early in the last
century, and compare the condition of these edifices
367
WOOD SCULPTURE
in those days with the present time, it is difficult to
connect them as they are now with their mediaeval
completeness. Harrod, in his notice of the stalls
of Norwich, says that he can just remember them
painted in the style of the seventeenth century.
Exeter. Fifty of the stalls have misericords. These are
generally accepted as of the thirteenth century, dating from
1255 to 1279. The character of some is certainly derived
from much earlier stone sculpture. These are the open-worked
ones of interlaced foliage and grotesques of a similar character
to the earliest at Christchurch, Hants. There is indeed more
than a reminiscence of the art which we find on many eleventh-
century Norman stone fonts and capitals. It will be noticed
that these early examples have no volutes, and that the
* 'patience'1 itself is of a different form, as seen in plan.
Among the subjects at Exeter is the famous " elephant/' the
oldest example in England, with his hocks, however, bent
the wrong way, or rather it should be said that an elephant,
properly speaking, has none. The volute ends are mostly
foliage of simple character, and are highly interesting as early
examples of an adjunct afterwards developed and carried to
extravagant lengths. The " restorations " by Sir Gilbert
Scott were, as is well known, equivalent to reconstructions,
but the fine canopy work of the bishop's throne remains.
Christchurch, Hants. Here there are three misericords,
probably contemporary with the earliest of Exeter, amongst
others of the sixteenth century. One is of the simplest kind,
the "patience" merely supported by three brackets in the
form of curled foliage of excellent character and execution.
The later transitional and Renaissance work is of a poor,
imitative character, probably by English artists, and differing
in this respect from that at King's College, where the hand
of some great Italian master, or perhaps Holbein, is evident.
Hemingborough (Yorkshire) possesses also a misericord
of thirteenth-century character, somewhat in the style of the
early Christchurch ones.
Sutton Courtenay, Berks. Three, of thirteenth century,
remaining. Very simple. Corbel, or bracket form. Ball-
flower ornament ; perhaps the only example of this in wood.
368
MISKUU'UKDS, KNt'.MSlI AND FRKNCl!
, MM M"t I't.N UK-"*. 4. < IH'.VI'KK, •;. '.!', M\KV\ IKini'lTA),, CIIHIIIKSTKH, 6. RAUMUW.
u i\i'irv!,".mi'nV' n i. -i, ' >' i"i'i \ v,i» Ai.m-ur MUM-UM (MASKKII, <t(ii.i.i«>TitJN)
, I \V, ' I. ',!« 1H'| V,
ENGLISH MISERICORDS
Chichester, Same general character as Exeter. Destruc-
tion and defacement in Puritan times.
Fordham (Cambs.). Thirteenth or early fourteenth century.
Mask centres ; foliage supports.
^Winchester Cathedral. Most beautiful thirteenth-century
foliage and fruit work in the spandrels and arches of the
dossals of the stalls ; a true conception of the power of
expression in wood, and rightly used. Neither France nor
Germany could show anything finer of the kind.
Worcester (the earliest, 1397). One of the finest sets in
England. Largely natural history, bestiaries, travellers' tales.
Figure work less good than the decorative, but wonderful natural
aptitude of evidently untrained artist, following good models,
(See Aldis, Carvings and Sculptures of Worcester Cathedral^
the whole series reproduced in excellent photographs.)
Lincoln (1370). Very varied. Figure work by an artist;
for example, the knight thrown from his horse ; full of spirit
and movement, and good in execution. Glorious pinnacled
canopy work ; panels with bas-reliefs of kings, and angels
playing musical instruments.
Winchester Coll. Chapel (1390). The subjects are
amongst the most varied we have. A curious one is a man,
haunted by goblins, seated on a cusp of the volutes.
Wells (1330). An extremely fine series of the highest
interest, intimately connected with the expansion of Gothic
sculpture in England. Comparatively early, these misericords
are not to be surpassed elsewhere in England. They are
peculiarly English in character, and very many of them,
especially with regard to the bosses of the volutes, are
specimens of wood^carving which would hold its own with
any of the same kind elsewhere. Nor are several of the
central subjects of birds and beasts, natural or monstrous,
of which there are forty-two, less remarkable for refinement
of character and perfection of execution. Note also amongst
the human figure work the charming head of a ^ lady with
her hair in a caul on each side, covered with a veil confined
by a fillet. The whole of the leaf-work may no doubt be
found elsewhere in stone, but this does not lessen the
value of its arrangement and treatment in another material
We find here, besides other frequently used plant-forms, the
maple, vine, marsh mallow, ivy, wild rose and beech, which
2 A 369
WOOD SCULPTURE
the West Country carvers loved so much to use, as the
Somerset and Devon screens and bench-ends also abun-
dantly testify.
Beverley Minster (1520). The misericord with the Fox
preaching has inscribed in the volutes " Johannis Syerke
Clericus Fabrici."
The carving on the bench-ends which still exist to
the number of many thousands throughout the country
and are especially characteristic in Devon, Somerset
and Cornwall, has frequently much analogy in subject
and technical treatment with that on the misericords.
The space at our disposal having already been very
fully occupied with other important divisions of our
subject, I propose now to refer very briefly to these
interesting examples of English work. To do more
than this would require numerous illustrations. The
whole subject will be fully treated and illustrated in
another book which I have now in preparation.
The general impression which one gathers from the
bench-ends, of which we find examples in nearly every
village church throughout Devon and Cornwall, is, in
the first place, of their massive character and deeply cut
carving. They are seldom less than three or four inches
thick, of solid oak. For their subjects, we may take
those of such churches as Kilkhampton, Launcells,
Poughill or Abbotsham, as typical of many others still
existing, and of thousands which have been destroyed
or turned to other uses. In very many cases we find
the emblems of the Passion — the nails, ladder, crown
of thorns, pierced hands, spear, garments and dice — to
be the favourite theme, and these, with other pious
devices, testify to the spirit of simple devotion which
still lingered in. the West of England up to the very
eve of the Reformation, against which, to the very last,
protests were stronger here than elsewhere. In other
parts of England, additional interest is to be found in
the stories on the panels, and in the elaborate nature of
BENCH-ENDS
the poppy-heads in which busts and other figure work
in the round are frequently mingled.
The somewhat neglected church of Launcells, almost
hidden in a depression in the hills which surround the
little town of Stratton, on the borders of Devon and
Cornwall, possesses what even in their present con-
dition is, perhaps, the finest and most interesting set of
bench-ends of the West Country style. Unfortunately
they have never, I believe, been photographed as a
whole. The designs are excellent, the carving bold and
deeply cut in the massive blocks of timber. There can
be little doubt that, as in other cases, the work is due
to local talent, but we have no means of determining
the position, lay or monastic, the artist may have held
in the community. We find here the frequent short-
hand notes, as it were, usual in small carved work of
the period, calling our attention to the Passion of our
Lord : a plain cross with a crown of thorns hanging on
it, the sponge, rows of money, the pincers and cord,
spices in vases, the nails, a sword and a human ear cut
off, the winding-sheet, the Veronica handkerchief, and
so on. Further than these, there are the feet of the
Saviour disappearing in a cloud at the Ascension, and
the footmarks left on the ground below ; the tomb as
an early Christian basilica with a tree and spade near
it ; hell-mouth as the wide-open mouth of a monstrous
animal ; the large Gothic M crowned, monogram of the
Blessed Virgin ; the fleur-de-lis ; an Annunciation lily
in a vase ; the emblem of the Sacred Heart and a hand
pointing to it ; and others. Of a later date in the same
set are some helmeted and profile heads in Renaissance
style, shields with initials or coats of arms, such as that
of Sir Bevii Grenville, the Tudor rose, and panels of
the linen pattern. At Abbotsham the bench-ends are
narrower and of less thickness than usual As in the
case of other churches they have their own individual
interest. We have, again, the Passion emblems, the
WOOD SCULPTURE
Veronica face on the napkin, the Sacred Feet, Hands
and Heart, the lantern, and the crucifixion itself with
the rood figures on either side. The builder is repre-
sented by his compass and square, and the Founder in
a full-length mitred figure, holding in one hand a model
of the church. On another panel is his shield of arms
surmounted by a mitre.
As the subject of bench -ends is but summarily
treated here I have not thought it necessary to give
illustrations. But on account of their interesting rela-
tion to mediaeval figure-sculpture generally, the panels
on the backs of some benches in the choir of the
parish church of North Cray, Kent, are here repro-
duced. They are carved in low relief and represent the
seven corporal works of mercy : the feeding of the
hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked,
harbouring the harbourless, visiting the sick and in
prison, and burying the dead The carving is most
excellent and spirited, and, though on a larger scale, one
is reminded, at the first glance, of the style and tech-
nique of the mirror cases, caskets and panels in ivory
of the same period. The panels are said to have been
acquired in Belgium a few years ago.
NOTE, — Through an unfortunate accident occurring when this book was
ready for press it has not been found possible to include an illustration of the
Annunciation group at Asciano, described p. 254. Advantage has been taken
to introduce instead the accompanying English figure of St. Catherine, now in
the collection of Dunstan Powell, Esq., of Birmingham (Plate LV,). Although
it may be considered by some critics somewhat bold to ascribe an English
origin to this piece, the author has no hesitation in so doing. He is of opinion
that there are not a few works of art, especially among the ivories, generally
ascribed to France or the Netherlands, which should be restored to England,
At the same time, it is a question for which space could not at present bo found
in this book. There are many examples, throughout the country, of carved
woodwork, such as— to name but one only—the fine roof of the church of
Mildenhall in Suffolk, with which comparisons would have to be made ; and,
indeed, the character of the more or less perfect figures in stone and alabaster,
and of English medieval sculpture, generally, would call for attention at
considerable length.
372
STATUETTE, ST. CATHERINE, THE KMl'KROR MAXKNTiUS IfNhKK HKK h'KKT.
KNCMJSH, KOURTEKNTU CIKNTUKV
IN TIMS 0)1,1, KCTKIN OK DUNSTAN I'mVKU,, KStt>.
CHAPTER XVIII
CHANCEL SCREENS AND OTHER CARVED WOODWORK
IN PARISH CHURCHES IN THE WEST OF ENGLAND
A~ LUSION has already been made more than once
to the paucity of remains of mediaeval wood
sculpture in England, due to the wholesale
destructions at the Reformation and in Puritan times.
But if, in figure work, little indeed has been spared for
us besides the misericords and the somewhat cognate
bench-ends, together with some scattered remnants here
and there, and a number of angels on hammer-beams
of roofs, we have in what remains of the carved wood
rood-screens examples of native art workmanship of
which we have every reason to be proud. For many
years neglected and unappreciated, and entirely ignoreo.
by foreign critics, they have recently attracted, in pur
own country at least, not a little attention and admira-
tion.
When we consider that at one time the rood-screen
and the choir-screen or pulpitum, were to be found, in
conformity with canon law, in every cathedral, collegiate
and monastic church throughout the country, that no
parish church was without its rood-screen at least, and
that this was usually of wood more or less richly
carved and decorated, it will be admitted that the
subject is too large a one to be treated in detail within
the limits of the present volume. Besides this, the
usual character of the ornamentation— in the main
architectural, enriched with foliage work— is only
partially included in the scheme or plan which we
have attempted to follow. These beautiful specimens
373
WOOD SCULPTURE
of the wood-carver's craft, together with bench-ends,
chests and panellings generally, must therefore await
another opportunity when — if it should be called for
— the character of the ornament and its technical
treatment may be given the special attention they
deserve.
The question of the early history of the rood-loft
may be dismissed in a few words, the more so because
the screen, as we find it now, is but a fragment of its
former self. It is chiefly interesting from the point
of view of the often elaborate carving of its foliage
work, the elegant series of fenestrations, the real merit
of the refined and delicate craftsmanship, and, above
all, from the fact that it is essentially English in
arrangement and treatment, however much the motives
may have been borrowed from foreign sources. In the
early days of the Church, before the choir system was
fully developed, it was to the altar alone that a screen-
ing off was applied, and this, to speak generally, was
done by an arrangement of curtains during the celebra-
tion of the sacred mysteries. In the basilica the screen
assumed the form of a low wall — still surviving in our
altar rails — and on either side were raised the ambons
or pulpits, for the reading of the epistles and gospels.
As time went on the seats of the bishops and other
ministers were no longer behind the altar, the choir
occupied a larger space in front of it, and a higher
screen divided this sanctuary from the main body of
the edifice. A loft, or gallery, to which access was
gained by a staircase in the wall, was supported by
this screen, and took the place of the ambons, serving
also as a passage across the building. This gallery
supported the organs, gave accommodation to the
choir, ^ and was at times even furnished with an altar
at which mass was said.
It is unnecessary to do more than allude to other
uses to which it was put. Some of them still form
374
ROOD-LOFTS
matter for discussion and dispute. It will be sufficient
to bear in mind that in the greater churches there were
two screens, the pulpitum and the rood-screen. It
may be said that the chief object of the latter, besides
displaying the Holy Rood and its attendant figures,
was its use for what we now call the organ-loft,
that is, as a place for the organs and as a singing
gallery. From the jubd, or pulpitum, were sung the
epistles and gospels and other offices, which, as at
present — at compline, for example — were prefaced by
the reader's request, "Jube domne benedicere" In
churches where there were two screens the rood-screen
stood at some little distance west of the pulpitum, and
carried, or had suspended over it, the great crucifix or
rood, with its attendant figures of Our Lady and St
John, while below it stood the rood-altar, where the
parish mass was daily said. In some cases mass was
celebrated in the loft itself, and we still find traces
of the rood-lights kept burning there. In parish
churches the two screens were combined, and this
combination may properly be termed the rood-screen.
It is uncertain when the practice began of placing
a rood, or Calvary, on the loft of the chancel-screen.
There is probably no existing complete rood with
its three figures earlier than the thirteenth century.
Two examples of this date are in the museum at
Dresden. In those cases where a still earlier origin
has been assigned, it is more than likely that they are
merely copies made as late as the fourteenth or even
the fifteenth century. They are, however, still interest-
ing, for the older style was faithfully imitated. An
early mention of a rood-beam occurs in a MS. of
the monk Gervasius, who, in describing the work of
Lanfranc in Canterbury Cathedral before the fire in
1174, says that above \htpulpitum, and placed across
the choir, was a beam (trabes eraf] which sustained a
great cross, two cherubim, and the images of St Mary
375
WOOD SCULPTURE
and St. John the Apostle (Willis, Canter. Cath., p. 37).
At the suppression of the monasteries many rich rood-
lofts were removed to the neighbouring parish churches,
The fine rood-screen and loft at Atherington, in Devon,
is probably an instance, and no doubt numbers were
destroyed, for few remain of an earlier date than the
fifteenth century.
The general subject of crucifix figures is one that
demands special treatment in the story of wood sculp-
ture and, so far as considerations of space allow, has
been already alluded to in other parts of this book.
The iconoclasm of Reformation times, the hatred of the
Puritans, and the irreverence towards, and curious dis-
like of, a representation of our Lord on the cross —
especially if sculptured — which was still rampant in
early Victorian days, have reduced the number of Eng-
lish rood-figures probably to no more than two or three
fragments. That is, if we leave out of account the cruci-
fix and attendant figures rudely carved in low relief on
a panel now placed over the communion table in the
little church of Gwerful Goch, near Corwen, in North
Wales, which is sometimes referred to as a rood.
About the year 1876 the visit of the local antiquarian
society brought to light a fragment of a crucifix figure
standing in a corner of the vestry of St. Antony's
Chapel at Cartmel Fel, Lancashire — 'like an old um-
brella,'as the Transactions relate — which for some time
had been used as a poker for the vestry fire. So far
as can be judged from its present condition, as illus-
trated by a photograph, the figure was a large and
extremely fine one, evidently English work, about 2
feet 6 inches long, of oak prepared with a ground, as
described in a previous chapter, and coloured and
gilded. The arms are missing, and the wound, from
which stream gouts of blood, is seen on the right side.
It is now preserved in the local museum. In 1886 the
remains of a rood figure of the fourteenth century, found
376
ROODS
about 1856 in the blocked-up staircase of the church of
Kemeys Inferior, were exhibited at the Society of Anti-
quaries. From the account in the Proceedings we
gather that the legs from the knees are now missing,
the long hair bound with a fillet, the face thin with
curly beard and moustache, and that there are remains
of colour. Besides the fragments which have just been
described, there are also two remains of rood figures
from Mochdre Church, Monmouthshire, now in the
Powysland Museum. They had been hidden, or stowed
away at one time or another, on the top of the wallplate,
where they were found at the time the church was re-
stored in 1867. The figure of our Lord measures, in
its present condition, 19 inches in length, but the arms
and feet are gone. There is a crown of thorns over
the full-flowing hair, and the brow is deeply furrowed.
The work is rude, but of course was at one time painted.
The attendant figure of the Virgin is \$\ inches in
length, the face of elongated type, and a long veil
covers the robe. Native work of the fifteenth century,
it seems to have been copied roughly from some Flemish
model. It is remarkably like the type of some of the
English alabaster figures : short, with a certain stiff-
ness, large head, long hands, prominent eyes and cheeks.
There is such a one in the museum at Ghent ; a Saint
Catherine of alabaster painted- It may be compared
also with a Madonna figure on the west front of Slea-
ford Church, These figures would, of course, be rather
small for a rood. The dimensions of some great roods
must have been very imposing. At Cullompton there
are still to be seen the remains of the Golgotha, or rock-
work, from which the Crucifixion group sprung. It is
constructed from the butts of two oaks measuring 9 feet
6 inches by I foot 6 inches, carved to represent rocks, on
which lie skulls and cross-bones, with mortices for the
figures of Mary and John. In England it is unique.
At Causton Church, Norfolk, are four medallions fixed to
377
WOOD SCULPTURE
the roof, which seem to have been the end of a rood-cross,
and, standing on the first hammer-beam on the north side
is a large image of Our Lady, probably one of the usual
accompanying figures. A few other attendant figures
are, or were not long ago, in existence : for example,
Our Lady at Etchingham, Sussex, and a St. John at
Lapford, Devon. The latter was found hidden in the
north wall of the church in 1889. It has a typical long
narrow face, and well-treated drapery in long folds con-
fined by a belt. Some few examples of representations
of the Crucifixion with the attendant rood figures re-
main, also on bench-ends ; for example, at Littleham,
North Devon.
The subject of the erections and destructions of the
roods which, up to the time of the Reformation, must
have existed on rood-screens alone to the number of
many thousands, is sufficiently interesting to justify a
slight digression. A systematic account compiled from
the many quaint entries in the churchwardens' accounts
of the centuries concerned would assist in making us
acquainted with important details regarding the con-
tracts for the making of the screens and their images,
the methods of raising funds, the employment of master
carpenters and imagers and, in a few cases, even the
names of the sculptors. We find also details of the
painting and gilding and their cost, records of the first
ruthless wave of iconoclastic destruction, the short-lived
replacements followed by a second " plucking down "
and reduction to decent order, and, finally, material for
amazement at the taste which so lately as last century
condemned the much despoiled, but still beautiful,
screen-work to the stable-loft of the vicarage or a bon-
fire. They were not suited to the aesthetic ideas of the
Victorian age, and when not utterly destroyed might
have been had for the asking. Happily, there has been
a revulsion of feeling, and in the West Country especi-
ally, the work of restoration has, in recent years, been
378
PARISH AND PARISH ACCOUNTS
undertaken almost everywhere, and, in most cases, this
has been well done.
Materials abound in such churchwardens' accounts
as we still possess, with regard to pre-Reformation vil-
lage life, and unfortunately, more as to the work of
destruction so gaily carried on by the orders of the
reforming sovereigns. A parish meant the community
living within limits defined by the Church, with its
organizations instituted by, and under, ecclesiastical
authority. The Church was its meeting-place, and it
was the bounden duty of the church council to furnish
the House of God. The name 'Vestry' nowhere
occurs. In every will the testator bequeathed some-
thing for a purpose connected with the fabric. Over
and over again the keeping up of the ' rode-loft ' and its
decoration is a favourite object of devotion. Not only
was money lavished on great cathedrals, but the smallest
and most remote of the village churches, seemingly of
little importance, was often most richly endowed and
furnished* How else can we account for the evidence
of former magnificence in out-of-the-way Devonshire
villages, even to-day difficult of access, nestling among
the combes and valleys, or scattered about the desolate
wastes of Dartmoor?
We read in the accounts for 1530 of the small
parish of Morebath of the monies devoted to various
altars, of the guilds of young men and maidens, and
how the funds for pious purposes were in the hands
of the people and administered by them. It is always
the same picture of church life, whether in town or
village- As examples which may illustrate the whole,
none is more instructive than the Tintinhull Records,
collected in 1883 by Bishop Hobhouse, and published
by the Somersetshire Record Society. Over and over
again in these and in other churchwardens' accounts
we come across such information as the following,
which is here briefly summarized. The accounts of
379
WOOD SCULPTURE
Tintinhull give a surprising picture of village life.
The church fabric and services were not maintained
by the neighbouring priory, but by the people, the
'parish' being a purely religious organization, dis-
tinct from the manor or the tything, though composed
of the same personnel, man for man. The bishop at
his visitation orders things to be done, such as the
repair of the roof, and the parish has to do it. The
great rood-screen at Yatton was all executed by Crosse,
a carver, in Cleeve within the parish, the oak being
bought by the wardens in standing trees, which they
selected, felled, and seasoned for this work and for the
fine bench-ends at Tintinhull. There are interesting
details of the payments to Crosse, large sums for the
rood-loft and solario, for 'divers colours to the aler,
for trussing of the hyde and the crosse with the Maries,
for painting oyle for the crosse, for gold to peynt the
angel, for vernaysche, glew and divers colers for the
loffte, for the chandeler in the roodlofte, for the images
to the rodelofte yn number Ixix, for ernest peny to
the ymage maker, for ale given to Crosse yn certeyn
timis yn his worke to make hym wel welled, to the
peynter to peynt oure Lady, to peynt the Crystofer,
for amendyng of the vyne in the rodeloft, for gylting
of Saynt James and oure Lady,' and so on, and so on,
items of the most suggestive interest. And amongst
other records of a similar kind there are few more
instructive than those of the parish of Stratton, on
the borders of Devon and Cornwall. These were at
one time in the possession of the father of the present
writer, obtained by him when it was easy to acquire
such things. They have been partly published by the
Society of Antiquaries, and are now safely housed
in the British Museum.
As it would be impossible within a limited space
even to summarize the character of the decoration of
the carved wood-screens throughout the country, our
380
CHANCEL-SCREENS
attention may be confined to the West of England,
and principally to Devonshire. We may omit, also,
the construction of the screens themselves and their
purely architectural features. In general the type is
characterized by the beauty of the foliage work which
covers the cornices, and by the decoration of the fillings
of the elaborately coved and richly decorated groinings.
In these features we have fair grounds upon which to
form an idea of the condition of wood-carving at the
close of the Gothic period, apart from that of figure
sculpture, of which some few examples still remain also
in the screens, in the bench-ends, beams and other
portions of the structures of the roofs. But for figure
work in wood, either bas-relief or in the round, it can
hardly be said that English artists were particularly
distinguished, though we may find here and there
examples of rare merit, as at Lincoln or Worcester, or
in certain misericords. Doubtless the foreigner was
frequently called in for any fine work. What there
is of native origin in the West of England is generally
but a rude copying from Flemish and Italian models
or — as in the case of such figures as those of the
Dartmouth communion table — from German sources.
The Italian style is, naturally, of a late date, and bear-
ing in mind the amount of destruction which has taken
place, it is but fair to say that our materials for forming
an opinion are but scanty. The recent exhibition by
the Society of Antiquaries of English sculpture in
alabaster is evidence that in this material at any rate
this country could produce work in the round capable
of holding its own with any other of the period.
If the rood-screen, with its figures and with the
elaborately canopied work of the front of the loft, no
longer exists, we may at least be thankful that the
beautiful substructure and the delicately carved cornices
and traceried vaultings, which at one time supported
the gallery flooring, have in a large number of cases
381
WOOD SCULPTURE
throughout the country, and especially in Devonshire,
been at last rescued from the neglect and devastation
to which the bad taste of the nineteenth century, far
more than the Elizabethan regulations, had reduced
them. Still, as not one single example exists in its
original form, as we have virtually one only (at Ather-
ington) retaining part of the original gallery front and
not a solitary instance of a rood, what we have to deal
with are fragments only, and these also, in many cases,
misplaced and worked up with odds and ends. The
screen, as we know it now, is simply a screen and nothing
more. It accords with Elizabeth's injunctions, 'a
comely partition between the chancel and the church/
In Devon hardly a scrap of woodwork remains earlier
than the fifteenth century. The most characteristic we
have are of quite the end of that epoch. The reign of
Henry vn. inaugurated a new era of peace and pro-
sperity, in Devon especially, inducing a marvellous
activity in the building and decoration of churches.
There were great tracts of country where the troubles
excited by the Wars of the Roses were scarcely felt at
all. The middle classes and the farmers were rich and
prosperous, and they gave freely of their riches for
the needs of the Church. It may be said, then, that
Devonshire screens are all much about the same date,
Most of the pre-Reformation examples seem to
belong to the time of Henry VIL and later, when
Gothic art was merging into that of the Renaissance,
passing through the iconoclastic havoc of the change
of religion, profiting by a short period of restoration,
and being again ' plucked down1 and shorn of their
principal features during the second half of the sixteenth
century. Mr. Bligh Bond, in his monumental work on
Rood-screens and Rood-lofts, dates back one Devon-
shire wood-screen, that at Stoke-in~Teignhead, to the
last quarter of the fourteenth century (1380-1390).
However this may be — and such an early ascription is
382
WEST COUNTRY SCREENS
more than doubtful — we are more concerned with those
which retain their original ribbed vaulting and fanwork
filled with Perpendicular tracery, complex feathering,
heavily foliated cusps and richly ornamented inter-
spaces. These fill a period of, roughly speaking, about
a hundred years ; that is, from about 1420 to 1520, the
time of greatest activity having been probably during
the last half of the fifteenth century. The system of
groined covings began, perhaps, in the previous one.
But although we may seem to be guided from time to
time by certain indications — such as shields of arms,
devices of families and royal emblems such as the
pomegranate of Aragon — these may not always be
absolutely reliable, for undoubtedly there was a certain
amount of exchange and alteration, as in the case of
Atherington. Documentary evidence is almost, if not
entirely, wanting.
The carved wood-screens of the West Country are
still distinguished by the solidity and massive character
which are characteristic of English decorative work.
The cornice beams are huge baulks of timber selected
with the greatest care from native oaks, hard as iron,
as that wood grows to be in the course of centuries*
But the screen as now existing bears but a slight pro-
portion of the dimensions of the great structure which
was originally raised. The order of 1561 (3 Elizabeth)
had been but too faithfully obeyed. This was that in
every parish church * the rood-lofts shall be so altered
that the upper part of the same with the soller be quite
taken down unto the upper parts of the vautes by
putting some convenient crest upon the said beam
towards the church/ etc But not even the 'vautes'
were spared in numberless cases, and so we find these
now replaced by a flat surface with, very often, scraps
and odds and ends of the old carvings stuck on in the
most meaningless manner.
The admirable foliage work which covers the beams
383
WOOD SCULPTURE
follows, and of course was often copied from stone
sculpture. Instances might be multiplied of that taken
from the capitals of pillars and other places : oak and
other leaf-work and vines and bunches of grapes. It
is analogous to the stone models, but treated with
greater breadth on the larger surface of the spread out
bressummer. The species of foliage used was in general
limited to the flora familiar to the county. The vine,
of course, from its symbolism and beauty of form was
bound to take the first place, and next 'the oak. The
hedgerow also furnishes its contribution, the tangled
1 traveller's joy/ the wild poppy with its seed vessels,
the prickly holly, acorns, rows of filberts and the
poisonous berries of the deadly- nightshade — we should
be led too far were we to attempt to follow them all.
It is strange, however, to find that the fern is rarely
used. The vine-leaf is treated in a variety of ways :
with bulbous centres, as are, also, the leaves of the
maple, marsh mallow or beech, or, most characteristic
of all — stylistic to a degree, in the research for decorative
application — lengthened out till we hardly recognize it,
and would take it to be, rather, a fern leaf of the hart's
tongue variety. The screen at Atherington especially
exemplifies this feature ; and we find it prominent also
at Pinhoe and Burrington, to name but two others,
though it is by no means confined to the county of
Devon. The pomegranate figures frequently with its
decorative foliage, the fruit either in its ordinary condi-
tion or cut open and showing the seeds. It has, of
course, its special signification as the badge of Katharine
of Aragon, and we find it — at Colyton, for instance —
beautifully figured in conjunction with Henry the
Eighth's Tudor rose.
Foliage-work is certainly the most striking feature
of the carving on the cornices of these West Country
rood-screens. Than wood no material could be more
appropriate. The system followed is, of course, de-
384
CORNICES OF SCREENS
rived from the earlier forms in stone which for five
hundred years at least had abounded in every country.
It was perhaps about the twelfth century that the
native flora first began to replace the acanthus and
other classical formulae of Romanesque times. That
the earliest inspiration was from Syria can hardly be
doubted : not necessarily always a copy, but adapted
and perhaps improved upon. Fern leaf and lily forms
were tentatively used, and at last the vine, with its
symbolism, and the oak in many varieties, predominate.
But there is always a process of evolution going on.
The vine, for example, as we find it in the thirteenth-
century sculptures of Exeter, differs in many ways
from the same leaf in the cornices of Atherington or
of Kenton. In the latter, and in other similar cases,
the treatment is sometimes fanciful to a degree which,
while it is not lacking in attractiveness, leaves us in
doubt as to the kind of plant which is intended. In
the best work we may conclude that the sculptor had
his models before him, freshly gathered perhaps from
the neighbouring woods and enclosures. He would
have sought for those possessing the greatest decorative
value, and in their arrangement for his preliminary
sketch he would have availed himself principally of
the general outlines of their foliage, not troubling to
keep with any exactness to the quality of the dentella-
tions or serrated edges and minor details. He would
have beaten up, waved, folded or moulded portions of
a vine-leaf here and there, and using both back and
front would have given special value to the lines of the
ribs and veinings, enlarging, diminishing or varying
the natural forms as his fancy might suggest The
result would not have been a copy of nature. Such
leaves and stalks and fruit may never have existed : at
least, they are often difficult to identify. Yet we are
deceived into imagining their reality, and in the general
effect of luxuriant vegetation we are not concerned to
2 B 385
WOOD SCULPTURE
detect anomalies. It is true art which, in such cases,
confronts us. At the same time it is of a different
nature from the art of the Bestiaries in which we are
deluded into imagining forms to be possible which are
but creations of phantasy.
A classification of all the flora employed in the
West Country and other screens of wood remains
yet to be made. A strict research would probably
reveal that besides the vine and oak, which are the
most prominent, many of the most homely and
commonplace plants would be found : for example,
the wild orchid, the coltsfoot, trefoil and its varieties,
celandine, fig, ivy, hop, chicory, wild parsnip, rosewort,
chervil, convolvulus, holly, poppy, blackthorn, the
nut tribe, parsley, briony, nightshade, or hemlock;
with the leafage of chestnut, beech, elm, sycamore,
yew and other trees, and much else besides. We
cannot fail to remark the almost total absence of
flower, though fruit is used constantly. It is the
foliage which appeals : neatly arranged or thickly
matted together with the tendrils and branch-work,
slender or coarse and gnarled as the case may be,
bound together in a mass, or opened up by delicate
undercutting — a seemingly orderly arrangement of a
wilderness of growing plant-forms.
The subject of the varieties of flower, foliage and
fruit on these screens, or bench-ends, and their treat-
ment is one, however, which would carry us to
indefinite lengths. The most expert of botanists also
would sometimes find himself at fault. Yet so
English in character and, in general, so English in
execution is this woodwork that it is difficult to
confine my remarks to a brief epitome. Few but
those who have had lengthened opportunities of
studying it on the spot could fully appreciate the
charm arising from a close inspection of the in-
finite variety and extraordinary richness of these
386
CORNICES OF SCREENS
interminable lengths of chiselled surfaces, running in
ribband-like bands placed one over the other across
the top of the dividing screen of the mediaeval
sanctuary ; the beauty of the window tracery beneath,
the mouldings and canopy work, the elegance of ogee
curves and crocketed arches, the vinework trailing its
lengths along, with here and there bunches of its
fruit, here and there birds with their symbolism ; the
gnarled and twisted stems curling in and out of the
leaf-work, or strained as it were into the semblance
of binding cords; the open-worked and often deeply
undercut branches and tendrils ; the creeping and
climbing hedge plants interspersed with wild rose or
eglantine, with poppy-pods or clusters of nuts, even
with small bouquets of wild flowers, and the hand
grasping them as at Bridford ; the interlaced and
Celtic knots, sometimes of unusual design and of
excellent simplicity, such as we find in the fillets
round the doorways ; the crestings of strawberry leaf,
or of a series of five-lobed flowers alternately upright
or reversed ; the excellent freedom of the sharply
chiselled outlines and the sure hand of the carver
working, as is evident, straight from the head and
following no mechanical rule; the admirable effect of
the play of light and shade ; the evidence of the con-
summate understanding by the designer of his work
as a whole — all this and more, for justice to be done
to it, would require the systematic visitation of
church after church, and, for the reader, ample
space for description and the most generous amount
of illustration.1
1 A very large number of plates would be necessary to illustrate the remarks
upon the foliage character of screens in their present condition. It is impracti-
cable to fulfil this requirement, on account of so many calls for illustration in
other divisions of the subject. It is to be understood, therefore, that the
descriptions given above do not apply to the cornices alone, but to that^which
is to be found also in the groinings, spandrels and window-traceries, in the
filleting of doorways, on the panellings, in the pulpit work, and incidentally in
387
WOOD SCULPTURE
Amongst this wealth of fruit and foliage work it
is - remarkable that animal and bird life holds so
small a place. Except here and there a bird or two
pecking at the grapes, there is nothing. The fauna
of Devon was fairly profuse. Yet, though their use
as imagery also was well known, we find no fox, no
badger, wild cat, otter, marten, stoat or other smaller
inhabitant of woods; no wild cattle or swine, no
eagle, hawk or heron ; not even the ordinary denizens
of the poultry-yard. The Pkysiologus, the Book of
Beasts, or Bestiary, is absent. Yet in these same
churches we have only to go to the misericords and
bench-ends to find it in conjunction with this same
foliage work We cannot tell the influences which
contributed to form the style of decoration which is
so fully exemplified in these screens. The investiga-
tion of its origin and evolution still remains to be
done. The ornamentation has, of course, followed
from stone sculpture, but in origin it is derived from
the Far East and filtered through Byzantine adapta-
tions. Bishop Bruere, of Exeter, in the thirteenth
century, travelled and resided many years in Eastern
countries, and the stall work of Exeter may be due
to him. Many a traveller, too, brought home his
recollections of such works as the throne of Maximian
the borderings of the bench-ends. A certain selection of members from the
cornices has been arranged on Plates LVII., LVIII., ux., but it (has to be ad-
mitted that this is by no means representative of the great diversity of this kind
of ornament which prevails in Devon and elsewhere. We have also to consider
the screens not only as they are now, but as they were in Catholic times.
Many difficulties presented themselves in deciding upon any one general view.
Such fine examples as those of Atherington, Lapford, Kenton, Kenn, High
Ham, Fitzhead, and several others had strong claims, of one sort or another,
for consideration, but, on the other hand, would have demanded more lengthy
notices, and some involve questions of foreign influence, of transitional and
mixed styles, and of pure Renaissance. It was therefore thought better to fall
back upon portions of the screens of Banwell, in Somersetshire, of Cbawleigh,
and of East Portsmouth, which illustrate, to some extent, the cornice mouldings,
vaultings with their fillings and bosses, windoSv-traceries, crcstings, and mutila-
tions which are the most usual features of West Country screens as they now
appear,
388
1'MI^^M^''
0M^ *Vv, art?*! eV , L.
CHANCEL SCREENS
at Ravenna, the ornament of which is derived from
Syria, Again, the crusader was always eager to
take impressions of what he saw in the holy cities
of Syria. Artists and artisans in their train no
doubt returned home laden with models for sculp-
tural ornament
The prevailing system of the East could not have
failed to make a deep impression, and there was
ample material from which to elaborate any amount
of fanciful imagery, adding their own national feeling.
One does not forget, of course, that the earliest of
our screens is some two hundred years later than
Bruere's time, but the earliest existing is certainly
not the first of its type. In these ages of Gothic
art the root principle of decoration everywhere, upon
capital and frieze, was this foliage interlacement,
mingled with animal forms which Byzantine art had
derived from Persia. The Celtic influence, which some
see in these screens, is farther to seek. We find, it
is true, the Celtic knot introduced occasionally, but
the system and feeling are different. There is, however,
no space here to follow out a question upon which
but faint glimmerings of light are apparent. Yet
a hint may be allowed at the strange relationship
which in form and in decoration these cornices or
bressummers present with such sculptures as those
on the ruined edifices of Mschatta at Makam Ali on
the Euphrates. The whole spirit is here the same:
vast surfaces of convex and concave members covered
with a similar treatment of vines and vegetation.
These ruins of the fourth or fifth century lie in the
land of Jordan, about 120 miles south of Damascus,
For a full account the reader must be referred to the
erudite article, amply illustrated, by Professor Strzy-
gowski in the Jahrbuch der Komglich Prenszischen
Kunstsammlungen, vol. xxv., 1904.
More puzzling than questions of style is that of
389
WOOD SCULPTURE
the sculptors by whom these works were executed.
Within so limited a period as the hundred years or so
embraced by these screens the similarity of style and
design is so great that it must have been due to some
systematic arrangement. In all probability the start
was given from the monasteries. Possibly Torre and
Tavistock and other abbeys sent out bands of monastic
workmen. That would have been in accordance with
their rule. Even to-day the monks of Buckfast are
rebuilding with their own hands, on the old founda-
tions, their abbey church on the banks of the Dart,
and executing the whole of the carving in wood and
stone. Some carved work, no doubt, would have been
furnished by the guilds of the larger cities, and, as in
the case of many bench -ends, may have been the work
of local carvers in the parish itself. In those days the
instinct for art had penetrated into the smallest villages.
A certain type of figures, such as the angels common
as corbel-heads and on the hammer-beams of roofs,
was evidently turned out commercially in quantities;
and there are many more of a ruder style which are
village work copied from this commercial type, or from
drawings or models, which, in one way or another, were
at the disposal of the local carver.
Who, then, did this Western work? It is some-
times assumed that foreigners were called in, that the
work was ordered from provincial centres such as
Exeter — even from London — or executed by gangs of
peripatetic craftsmen- All this may have been the case
under varying circumstances of time and place. Then,
again, no doubt such monasteries as Tavistock or
Buckfast or Torre superintended or at least furnished
plans and sketches. Nothing is more likely also than
that monks were sent to work in the villages. At the
present day there are extensive wood-carving estab-
lishments at Exeter which turn out screen and figure
work of excellent quality in considerable quantities,
390
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CHANCEL SCREENS
sending it far and wide, even to the churches of the
Australian colonies. Not a little also comes from
Germany and from such places as Obef-Ammergau.
What is not found now, but what was common in
mediaeval times, is the collaboration of the village
craftsman. To him we doubtless owe many bench-
ends, many angel figures in roofs, many misericords,
perhaps even the beautiful canopies of honour over
the roods, as at Lapford. Why not, also, much of
such work as the foliaged cornices of the screens ? A
case in point is that of Crosse, the master carpenter of
Yatton. If we may take it that he himself was the
sculptor, probably such a one was to be found also in
many villages. Intercommunication with larger towns
was not such a simple matter in those days.
Although, then, we have little or no direct informa-
tion, and the churchwardens' accounts — such of them
as we have of the periods in question — are provokingly
silent on the matter, nothing would have been more
natural than that a parish priest and his parishioners
should have done much of the carving. It is so even
in our own day. The late Rev. J. L. Fulford of Exeter
was a good amateur carver, as his son, the recently
deceased vicar of Hennock, relates in a memoir of his
father, and much work in Woodbury Church — bench-
ends and poppy-heads — was done by him. So also in
many other places, as at Ilfracombe, bosses of roofs
and screen-work have been copied and restored from
the ancient work by ladies and others of the parish.
The question of the employment of foreign work-
men is one that in the absence of direct evidence
presents many difficulties. Undoubtedly Flemish,
German and Italian artists were at work in Eng-
land- In the case of wood-carving we shall find the
style of the last named especially abundant in the
decoration of churches — such as King's College chapel
— and in the staircases, ceilings and panellings of the
WOOD SCULPTURE
great country-houses in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. On Devonshire screens and bench-ends
much also is copied and adapted from Italian panels
and doors in wood which are still existent. But when
we come to particular cases of pre- Reformation screen-
work opinions will differ. It is commonly held that
that of Colebrook, Coleridge, Brushford, Kenton and
other places is, in part at least, by foreign hands* But
however much the style may point that way, however
great may be the similarity to be found in the often
adduced instance of the peculiar flamboyant style of
the screen of Saint-Fiacre-le-Faouet in Brittany, the
Flemish inspiration of Kenton or the Italian Renais-
sance character of the later screens/we need not be com-
pelled to accept the inference. Even should it be
suggestive, the great bulk of the design in general and
the character of the tracery are English.
The glorious screen at Atherington — unique in the
possession of its original gallery front — that at Lapford,
and some others of mixed Gothic and Renaissance
character, are usually attributed to Italian or other
foreign workmen. Against this it may be said that
the English carvers followed the universal taste and
spirit of the time, and had no hesitation in copying to
the best of their ability. At Atherington English
mannerism is, to me, apparent* English are the
large angels on the standards ; and, from the same
chisel, English are the putti in the fillings of the
vaultings. There is a lack of refinement and of Italian
cachet, and creditable as they may be, I doubt that an
Italian critic would accept them. The fine Renaissance
bench-ends of Lapford have the solid character of
English work. At the same time there are others —
for example, the panelling at Warkleigh— which may
call for a different judgment. So also in the case of
bench-ends such as those in the church of Ashcornbe,
hidden away among the hills of the Teign valley,
392
CHANCEL SCREENS
However well supplied with models, these are too good
for an ^ untrained village worker. Reminding one of
the spirit of the Japanese netsukes in their play of
fancy, in the winged demons and symbolical imagery,
and in the boldness and precision of the deep-cut
carving, they are the work of a cultivated and learned
man, as well as of an accomplished craftsman.
As a rule the village artist had little or no didactic
intentions. When we find the appearance of these in
late times they had probably lost their force, and were
used, as we use such things to-day, without knowing
precisely why we do so. Most likely a good deal of
the earlier screen-work was not only directed from,
but actually carried out by, carvers supplied by the
monasteries, who during their stay in the villages
would have instructed the local talent. Later on,
when the number of schools and guilds increased,
these would have been well supplied with French
and Flemish and Italian pattern-books and models.
And even the work of foreigners permanently settled
in the country and assimilating their tastes to ours
is rightly qualified as English, as in the cases of the
silversmiths Lamerie, Kandler or Morel-Ladeuil, of
the potter Solon, or of our naturalized English
painters. Nor can we leave out of account the in-
timate relationships between our own and foreign
monasteries of the same order and the interchange of
their inmates.
It is often the case that a screen is reputed to
have come from some local monastery at the dissolu-
tion. For example, the Brushford (Somerset) screen
is said to have been carved by the monks of Barlinch
for their priory church. The custom also was very
general of ordering a new screen to be exactly copied
from an already existing one, and this may account
for a good deal of the family resemblance. In the
highly interesting account-book of the High Cross
393
WOOD SCULPTURE
Wardens of the parish of Stratton we find an in-
denture of agreement in the year 1531 for the making
of a new rood-loft 'after the form and fashion in
everything as the rood-loft of St. Kew, with a crucifix,
with a Mary and John, and all other workmanship
after the fashion of Liskeard church ' ; and there are
other details, such as the provision of two images
and tabernacles, 'the one to be of Saint Armele, the
other of the Visitation of our blessed Lady/ And
there are sums of money paid to ' John Daw the
Kerver.' We note also the extreme care taken in the
choice of timber, which was all to be substantially
seasoned, and of one manner of drying. Seven years
was allowed for the completion of the work, and the
price to be xlvis- viiid* the foot. In 1539 'the sold the
olde story of the old rood-loft, for viis- vid' In 1549
there is an entry of the ' Taking down the rode and
the pagentes.' But on the roth June the rebellion
broke out, so the churchwardens set them up again.
In 1572, alas, amongst other entries of destructions,
we have 'rec^ of Master marrys for woden angells
iiiiV and the next year the rode and loft are finally
got rid of. Extracts from other churchwardens'
accounts could be referred to, if space permitted, from
which the fortunes of the rood-screens in various parts
of the country, couched in quaint and, it must be said,
contemptuous language, might be gathered.
The striking character of English work is its
homeliness and sincerity. Throughout these mediaeval
times the relationship was intimate between the artist
and the most humble of the public in whose interests
he worked. Art was the property of ordinary folk as
weU as of the learned, and it was addressed in the
main to, or intended for the instruction of, those who
could read in no other way. The inhabitant of the
smallest village acquired the instinct of a refined
taste from his earliest years, and became in fact a
394
CHANCEL SCREENS
competent critic of the value of that of which he was
called upon to bear his share of the organization and
of the cost The language which it spoke was not
one appealing, as afterwards, to a privileged few, but
to all. It was a necessity of existence, innate in every
one, requiring for the public in general no teacher,
no art schools, no museums, no pressure from a
paternal government. In the case of the village artist
himself, however naive his ideas may have been, how-
ever crude his skill, there remains always the charm
which the evidence of a loyal effort to overcome
difficulties and the individuality of the worker cannot
fail to produce. They are qualities which are rare,
indeed, to find in our village life to-day. Mr. William
Allingham, in his diary (published in 1908), forcibly
asks, 'Where did the good taste and instinctive
righteousness in former days come from, and whither
has it fled?'
An examination of these screens opens up many
questions of interest relating to the state of religious
feeling in England immediately previous to and con-
current with the Reformation. Granted that much
figure and painted work was destroyed, what remains
snows a gradually increasing disuse of religious
symbolism and devotional suggestion ; a preference
for the pagan sentiment of the Renaissance ; a tendency
to the personal glorification of individuals, such as
the frequent use of shields of arms and royal emblems.
There is but a last lingering trace of a desire to inspire
devotion by figures of holy personages, such as the
prophets (if such they be, and not divines of the new
creed), in the Gothic but otherwise totally unreligious
screen at Lustleigh. It is small wonder, indeed, that
when art was divorced from the people in the sensuous
and costly cult of the Renaissance, devotion went with
it, and the people themselves lost their sense of refine-
ment and any practice of art itself.
395
WOOD SCULPTURE
It would be a pleasant task to describe in detail
the finer work of such noble specimens of wood-
carving as the screens of Atherington, of Kenton,
Lapford, Chulmleigh, Combe-in-Teignhead, Hartland,
Holbeton, Kentisbeare, Plymtree and many more in
Devon and Cornwall ; to turn to Somerset with Ban-
well, High Ham or Fitzhead, or to go to Kent, to Nor-
folk and the East Coast, and to Wales especially, which
presents so many points of interest, but a volume of the
size of the present one would hardly suffice, and illus-
trations also would require to be plentiful. For much
interesting information in detail, and for profuse illus-
tration, the reader may be referred to the admirable
works lately published by Mr. Francis Bond and
Mr. Bligh Bond (see Bibliography).
In the condition in which we now find these screens,
often shorn of their principal features, or disfigured by
restorations, it is true that a certain amount of imagina-
tion is required to realize their appearance as they once
existed. But if we should take any separate portion, a
whole range of foliate cornice or a single specimen of
fan-traceried vaulting, and inquire into the value of the
carving and how far the carver fulfilled the best prin-
ciples of his craft, we should find that he knew how to
avoid the great fault of modern times and of some of
the restorers of these screens. It is the fault to which
Ruskin so forcibly alludes when he says : ' It is not
coarse cutting, it is not blunt cutting which is bad : but
it is cold cutting— the look of equal trouble everywhere,
the smooth diifused tranquillity of heartless pains, the
regularity of a plough in a level field. If completeness
is thought to be vested in polish and to be attainable
by help of sandpaper, we may as well give the work to
the engine lathe at once. But right finish is simply
the full rendering of a well-intended and vivid impres-
sion, and it is oftener got by rough than fine handling.'
In these flowing masses of vegetable life, leaf and ten-
396
FOLIAGE WORK
dril contending for the mastery of growth, almost as the
wild vine or clinging hopbine do amid the tangle of the
lofty Devonshire hedge, the sculptor — to borrow once
more from Ruskin — ' paints with his chisel, puts power
with his touches into the form. They are touches of
light and shadow : they raise a ridge or sink a hollow
to get a line of light or a spot of darkness.'
Characteristic, above all, in these masses of foliage
which meet the eye in the cornices of every Devon
screen are the grace and elegance of the vine work ; not
symmetrical with leaves of identical form and bunches
of fruit as we meet with elsewhere, but flourishing wild
and free. Here, and in the rest of the tangled foliage,
there is the spontaneous outcome of the carver's thoughts
as he worked perhaps with no pattern before him. Here
is originality, nothing stolen from great masters of en-
graving and etching. The impulse is from nature, but
it is followed freely, every plant adapted to suit the
purpose, almost regardless of absolute fidelity to truth
of form, more careful to attract by the beauty of the
long-roiling curves of the festoons of leafage contrast-
ing with one another, curve competing with curve as
they twine around the twisted ropes, or rough formed
tendrils, which pass along from end to end ; careful
too, that strength may not be sacrificed by undue un-
dercutting or projections. And then, again, how true
to the Gothic spirit are the lines of the traceried fenes-
trages ; that spirit itself derived, it has been said, from
the suggestion of some leafy avenue, arches of branches
and foliage meeting overhead, and what more appro-
priate material could we find to illustrate it I
Again carrying our thoughts back to the time when
these screens were in the pride of their beauty, if we
wish to realize the full intentions of their creators, we
have to imagine them not with an aspect of the newly
chiselled oak, not even with the mellow tone which age
and use gives to wood, but brilliant with colour and
397
WOOD SCULPTURE
gilding, not an inch of the surfaces left plain. In some
cases the restorer has tried his hand at renewing this
coloration also. But either because we are not in
sympathy with mediaeval feeling, or from want of skill,
these attempts have in few cases been a success. The
art is lost. In modern hands the results are glaring,
tawdry, vulgar and shining with varnish. There is an
entire absence of consideration for lights and shades,
and for the atmosphere and conditions in which the
work now finds itself. Doubtless those who made
these screens were as well able as ourselves to appreciate
the beauty and harmony of wood left in its original
purity, toned down, perhaps, or waiting for the addi-
tional concord which time would supply. However
this may be, there can be little question concerning
the taste which will prefer Kenton, or Atherington,
to the garishness of Bovey Tracey or Bradnmch.
Where the carver's work is missing, from destructions,
we may be able to replace it by copying that which
exists ; but the painter's is no longer before us : that is
to say, in the spirit of the whole conception. On the
other hand, the painting and gilding on the new screen
at Littleham, near Bideford, has been executed in a
manner which is probably much more in harmony with
the mediaeval system than we find in the restorations
elsewhere.
Remains of colour and gilding are fairly frequent,
and in some cases, as at Bridford, to a considerable
extent. The general question of the polychromatic
decoration of sculpture has already received attention
here at considerable length and need not be repeated.
The medium used for the screen -work is somewhat
uncertain. Roughly speaking, it was a thin spirit, or
the colour was ground in water with size, white of egg
or other colloid : oil was seldom, if ever, used in the
earlier mediaeval times. Whatever the medium, it
imparted a delicate bloom and did not conceal entirely
398
POLYCHROMATIC DECORATION
the texture of the wood, even in the twists of red and
white, black, or green and white, on the beads and
columns. The great difference between the old colour-
ing and the modern restoration shows that the one was
done by an artist, the other in the spirit of the house-
painter. In the earlier times we may remember that
there were artists who could design and paint such
admirable panels as those of Hennock. These are
English work, the delicately drawn outlines having the
sweep and decision of single stroke drawing. Doubt-
less the screen painters were equally able and refined.
The artist kept in mind his subordination to, and de-
pendence on, his surroundings in the general architec-
tural scheme of the building, and the play of light and
shade in his carved work. His foliage and fruit were
not in one uniform stage of growth, and his colour of
one uniform tone from one end to the other. His
grapes are ripening or ripe, his leaves in summer
bloom, or autumn decay, and, however wild and luxuri-
ant the masses of foliage may be, the scheme is abso-
lutely subordinate to the breadth of the masses of light
and shade. The chisel and the brush worked together,
and the wielder of both was careful not to overcharge
the ornamentation. In this lies the true test of his
work. In good work neither can be overdone. Re-
marks of this kind apply, of course, only to the best
examples. It cannot be asserted that the merit is equal
everywhere. Sometimes we find in the cornices — for
example, at Bradninch — a monotonous regularity and
repetition of the same motive : turned out by the yard,
as it were, with the ' cold cutting ' which has been
quoted. And more than one contract stipulates, as in
tne Stratton accounts, the price per foot run. At Bovey
Tracey the bunches of vine leaves and grapes on the
cornices are too regularly repeated at intervals. We
are not bound to admire everything because it is old.
The examination of these carvings could be pursued
399
WOOD SCULPTURE
to a length of which the plan of this book will not permit.
In point of numbers alone the wood-screens since
the unearthing process of the last twenty-five years or
so, go far beyond what most people would imagine.
In Devon, Messrs. Bond and Camms' work, the latest
authority on the subject, includes no less than a hundred
and forty in various states of original condition and
restoration, and, besides fragments, a list of seventy-
eight removed or destroyed during the last century.
In Somersetshire upwards of seventy rood and parclose
screens are noted, and throughout England and Wales
the number is correspondingly large.
It is not without considerable reluctance that one
like the present writer, whose acquaintance with the
West Country and its churches has been lifelong, is
compelled to treat the subject but superficially. There
are few, indeed, familiar with Devonshire to whom the
name alone does not recall pleasant memories of its
vales and combes, its leafy high-hedged lanes, its ruddy
soil and green-covered cliffs, contrasting with the peace-
ful blue of the calm estuaries, the valleys of Teign and
Tamar and of Dart, the rich and flourishing farms and
orchards, or the stretches of desolate moors so pictur-
esquely broken by earn and crag and coloured heather.
Apart from all this are the numberless shrines which
hold the woodwork with which, however summarily,
we have been occupied. In Devon and Cornwall, on
whatever eminence we may chance to stand, we shall
have in view hardly ever less than four or five typical
churches with the long low roofs of the aisles and the
stately pinnacled towers. Some, as at Kenton, are
almost cathedral-like in dimensions and in remains of
former magnificence. Some, again, of unaccountable
spaciousness are to be found in the quietest of secluded
villages, difficult of access, or, as at remote Morwenstow,
where the builders could never have expected its soli-
tudes to have tempted men to form a population equal
400
WEST COUNTRY CHURCHES
to the capacity of its church. Yet, as Hawker, the
poet-vicar, loved to think, 'our forefathers purposely
placed their churches far off in order that there might
be a church path to be trodden as the journey of the
worship day, a road of quiet thought.' Hardly one of
these churches but is now adorned by specimens of
English wood-carving. And if, when we look at the
best examples we can imagine them as they were when
doubtless a village festival celebrated their completion,
I do not hesitate to say that we have as much reason
to be proud of them as the Frenchman has of Amiens
or the German of Ulm. Certainly, in no other land
can such a profusion of wood-carving be found in village
churches as in those of the two counties alone of Devon
and Somerset*
CONCLUSION
IN the endeavour which has been made in the fore-
going pages to follow a very comprehensive subject,
our attention has been confined, for the most part,
to the three centuries during which Gothic art may
be said to have arisen, to have shaken off the torpor
and subjection to hieratic prescriptions under which all
forms of art had long suffered, to have attained its
highest development, to have been influenced by and
to have finally succumbed to the complete change of
system that — speaking generally and without reference
to its origins — we are accustomed to term the Renais-
sance. The spirit of Gothic, which although subordinate
to religion had still worked in liberty with regard to de-
tails, died out and became replaced by a more regulated
system based on forms and traditions derived from
the classical antiquities of Greece and Rome- The
superabundance of material is so great, that even while
limiting our attention to the Western world it has
been necessary to draw the line somewhere, and it is
at this point — that is to say, at the period when the
difference of styles was becoming definitely and uni-
versally marked — that a pause, at least, has been made.
But much more remains to be noticed of the decorative
and sculptural application of wood from this time to
our own day.
From at least the middle of the fifteenth century the
new system had imposed itself on sculpture in wood, on
statuary and small figure work, and on the decoration
of furniture no less than on great sculpture in marble
or bronze, on goldsmiths' work, or on architecture.
402
CONCLUSION
Later on the arts became less and less the property
of the people generally, who had until then shared
them in common with the learned and wealthy. Reli-
gious changes caused a decline in the spirit of devotion,
with the result that the lower orders lost their direct
interest in the decoration of their churches, and, with
it, their good taste and capability of expressing it. It
was the beginning of an age of elegance, of refinement
and of luxury. Courts and princes vied with each other
in the patronage of the arts, led by Italy, which at the
height of her prosperity under such princes as the
Sforza, the d'Este, Lorenzo the Magnificent, or
Leo x., sent out in all directions to discover the
treasures of antiquity for the inspiration of the artists
in their service.
Naturally there was a period of transition before
Gothic feeling and ideas gave way completely to the
new system. Nor must we forget also that the revival
or Renaissance was no suddenly completed revolution,
and that mediaeval and classical art are logically and
necessarily more nearly related than they may seem
to be. It is not surprising that for a time the two
went side by side. Instances could be multiplied in
the figure and decorative sculpture in wood of every
country, and it is not always easy to qualify the style
which resulted from the mixture. Even so late as the
first quarter of the sixteenth century the doors of the
cathedral of Aix (of which excellent reproductions may
be seen in the gallery of casts of the Kensington
Museum) are evidences that the older feeling died hard.
For however admirable, taken collectively, these sculp-
tures may be, neither the canopies nor the ogee arches
nor the floral borders can make them Gothic. In essen-
tials, notwithstanding the motives borrowed from the
earlier style, they are purely classical, even to the
costumes of the prophets. So is it again with the
charming furniture and other decorative carving in
403
WOOD SCULPTURE
walnut of the Chateau of Gaillon. This, entirely the
work of French sculptors, despite the presence of, and
possible direction by, Italian artists, is a mixture, or
rather arrangement, of Renaissance and Gothic styles.
The panellings are magnificent, with their semi-Gothic
window - traceries, their semi - Renaissance pilasters
covered with arabesques, their pointed arches enriched
to overloading with cupids, vases and birds in full
relief.
These two examples have been selected, because,
although the same story of the invasion of the Italian
Renaissance may everywhere be read, it was to be found
exemplified in the highest degree in France, while, at
the same time, there was no slavish following, but, on
the contrary, a national independent movement.
In Italy the consideration of the choir and stall
work which adorn innumerable religious edifices would
open up so extended a subject, not only in Gothic, but
also in Transition and in full Renaissance times, that
sufficient space could not be devoted to it. Nor could
it be entirely dissociated from the mass of marquetry
work with which some of the greatest names are
connected. We should find the latter not only in
the veneered mosaic style of various coloured woods
exhibiting landscapes, still-life, architecture, and figures
to which the term tarsia is more properly applied, but
also in the use of the symmetrically arranged geometri-
cal inlays called certosina. This marquetry is intimately
connected with the sculptured work, and it would be
difficult to consider the one without the other. Had it
been otherwise we should have noticed the entirely
Gothic choir executed at Siena by Domenico di Niccote
in 1415, and many more either still purely Gothic or
mixed with the newer style. For similar reasons of
want of space it has been necessary to pass by such
important examples of wood sculpture, and such pro-
minent names, as the cassoni, candelabra, and the host
404
CONCLUSION
of other decorative furniture of a Baccio d'Agnolo or
of a Giovanni Barili, carver of the great doors of the
stanze of the Vatican. The marriage cassoni and other
carved chests alone furnish material for a very extended
notice. They were usually of walnut, of sarcophagus
form, the panels filled with mythological and historical
subjects deeply carved, relieved, or even completely
covered, with gilding, supported on claw feet, and often
bearing caryatid figures in the round at the angles.
Even the most ordinary furniture, such as chairs, was
richly carved with a similar character of figure work,
and amongst such things few are more striking than
the bellows, usually of walnut, of which, no less than
other great museums, our own at Kensington possesses
a rich collection.
In France, until well into the sixteenth century,
wood-carving continued faithful to Gothic traditions
and methods. Burgundy had been annexed to France
in the last quarter of the preceding century, and it is to
the influence of that school that we owe later on the
richest and most charming creations of the sculptors
of the monumental pieces of furniture. Mention has
already been made of Michel Colombo and the activity
with which wood sculpture was practised in Touraine
and all down the banks of the Loire. Here also
flourished later on Hugues Sambm, the great menuisier
of Dijon*
Although the art of the wood-carver of the sixteenth
century in France, and indeed in every other country,
has primarily to be considered as furniture, this does
not exclude ample material in the figure and other
decorative work which was so lavishly applied to it,
and would justify our regarding it from the same point
of view as in the earlier periods. When Gothic ideas
were dying or had died out, France, incited from Italy,
fell in with the idea of returning to the study of the
antique ; yet, though borrowing the Italian new methods,
405
WOOD SCULPTURE
she adapted them in her own way, impressing them
with the unmistakable cachet of her own genius. The
reign of Francois i. was characterized by immense
luxury and display, not only in the architecture of the
numerous palaces and chiteaux, but in the furniture
and sculptured woodwork which adorned them. Till
then the huchers and imagiers had kept in general to
Gothic methods and traditions. Now, or at least in
the reign of his son Henri n., they are influenced
by, and almost exclusively draw their models from,
quite another class of artists. The inspiration is still
architectural, but from civil instead of ecclesiastical
precedents. They follow the designs prepared by
architects, draughtsmen, and engravers of ornament,
and we should find amongst the authors of these
designs such illustrious names as the Burgundian
Hugues Sambin, the Parisian Du Cerceau, Philibert de
TOrme, Bachelier of Toulouse, Pierre Lescot, Jean
Bullant, Jean Goujon, and Germain Pilon,
In the sixteenth century the art of the wood-carver
passes mainly into the domain of domestic furniture,
applied to cabinets, tables, chairs, bedsteads, staircases,
fireplaces, panellings, ceilings and a host of minor
things, although at the same time much ecclesiastical
ornament, such as rood-screens and choir-work, still
calls for attention. It is the age of the great massive
armoire or cabinet, the buffet and the huge impos-
ing bedsteads decorated with the utmost profusion of
carved figures and panels in high and low relief The
inspiration is still always from architecture, imitative
of its general lines and classical entablatures, for de-
corative rather than for constructive reasons. Every-
where apparent are the designs of the great draughtsmen
just mentioned; everywhere is the same prevailing
taste for an astounding mixture of triumphs, pilasters,
colonnettes, caryatid figures, festoons, scrolls, broken
pediments, garlands, frets, and mouldings of all kinds,
406
CONCLUSION
masks, strapwork, balusters, urns, arabesques, sirens,
fauns, satyrs, griffins, nymphs and cupids, sphinxes,
dolphins — a whole world of real and imaginary beings :
overloaded perhaps, yet supremely elegant. How far
the illustrious names of Sambin, to whom are attributed
the great doors of the Palais de Justice at Dijon, or of
Jean ^ Goujon, for the doors of Saint Maclou, may be
identified as the actual sculptors may be uncertain, but
the influence of their designs is apparent Casts of
both works are in the Kensington Museum.
Although nothing would be more difficult — it might
even be said hopeless — than an attempt to classify the
schools of wood-carving in France of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, and to assign with certainty this or
that piece to one or the other of them, yet we are able
to connect them with certain names, and, in some cases,
with certain styles. As a general rule oak is character-
istic of the north, and hardly goes farther south than
Burgundy, south of which region walnut prevails. Of
the schools of Normandy, Brittany and the north
generally we have the stalls of Amiens, the doors of
the cathedrals of Beauvais and of Saint Maclou. The
lie de France, Touraine and the banks of the Loire are
of the school of Philibert de TOrme, of Pierre Lescot,
of Jean Goujon, of Du Cerceau and of Germain
Pilon. With Sambin we connect the Burgundian and
Lyonese regions, and the neighbouring Dauphiny. At
Toulouse Bachelier seems to have exercised the same
influence as Sambin in Burgundy. Of this school is
the choir of Audi* The wood sculpture of Auvergne is
especially remarkable. If France has been able to keep
for her own great museums the greater proportion of
the splendid examples of wood sculpture which her
genius produced in the sixteenth century, and if we
possess comparatively little indeed at South Kensing-
ton or even in the Wallace Museum, we may be grateful
that we have, in the Salting and Vaughan bequests, those
407
WOOD SCULPTURE
splendid panels in walnut and pearwood which illustrate
the school of Auvergne. Nothing could exceed ^ the
elegance and charm in treatment of these characteristic
examples of the Renaissance art of the period of
Francois i. : the busts of men and women issuing in
three-quarter high relief from the circular medallions
among delicate arabesques of leaf scroll work. Of the
style of Philibert de 1'Orme we happily possess also at
Kensington a sufficiently characteristic example in such
a cabinet as the one (No. 2573), completely covered
with arabesques, sphinxes, caryatid figures, trophies
of arms, Corinthian pilasters, masks and other orna-
ment ; and of the art, or influence, of Sambin, the walnut
cabinet dated 1580 at one time in the Seilliferes collec-
tion. There is also, from the Soulages collection, a fine
dressoir attributed to Bachelier, but this is somewhat
later than his time.
We need not follow the effect of the Renaissance in
other countries. The art of the sixteenth century was
cosmopolitan, international The models were the same
everywhere. There was practically but one system,
the subjection to the victorious Italian invasion, more
or less refined in appreciation according to each nation's
taste and genius.
In France from the seventeenth century there were
no longer distinctive schools. The provinces were
merged in that of Paris- Sculpturesque wood-carving
declined : it was the age of marquetry and of dainty
boudoir furniture enriched by the art of the bronze
founder and chaser. Boulle, Gouthi6re, Riesener, David
Roentgen and their contemporaries reign supreme.
Without proposing the least m the world to enter into
details which could have no place in such a summary
as the present one, the reader may be reminded of a
few names of other decorators who, with those just
named, illustrate the history of sculpture in wood, as
applied to furniture, from the beginning1 of the seven-
408
CONCLUSION
teenth to well on into the eighteenth century. Chief
amongst them, and one of the earliest, was Charles le
Brim, the director of a whole army of workers for the
court of Louis xiv. under the protection of Cardinal
Mazarin, In his employ, Jean Bdrain, Jean le Pautre,
Girardon, Jean Marot and his son Daniel are all names
connected in one way or another with our subject.
Daniel Marot is of especial interest to us. Exiled into
Holland he was the means of disseminating the French
style in our own country, where he died, and the in-
debtedness to him both of Grinling Gibbons and of
Chippendale could not be overlooked. One more name
amongst those who worked under le Brun must not be
forgotten. This is the Italian Philippe Caffieri, who
was especially distinguished as a wood sculptor. The
fine doors of the great staircase at Versailles are his
work.
Wood sculpture in England of the late fifteenth,
of the sixteenth and of the seventeenth centuries pos-
sesses in its domestic character features of very strong
national interest. Probably in no other country is
there still existing, outside museums, such a wealth of
carved woodwork as is to be found in the almost count-
less great country-houses throughout the land, where it
serves the same purposes of ornament and usefulness,
and is in many cases in the possession of the same
historic families as in the days when it was erected or
made. Not only is it to these great houses that we
have to look for our treasures in wood in the shape of
cabinets and decorative furniture of other countries, but
it is in them that still exist, in situ, the massive carved
staircases, doorways, chimney-pieces, panellings of
rooms, mirror and picture frames, imposing bedsteads,
tables, chairs and a host of other furniture of a period
of at least two hundred years, during which the use of
wood for decoration was so general Nor should our
interest be confined to these two hundred years only,
409
WOOD SCULPTURE
In mediaeval times dense forests of oak abounded
throughout the country, and afforded the most easily-
worked material for the construction of whole cities.
Houses were framed together, necessitating the use of
vast posts or gigantic squared pillars — almost trees —
such as we find in many a half-timbered church tower.
The stories projected one over another, and this method
of using large surfaces of exposed wood afforded con-
siderable scope for carved work in the overhanging
fronts, gable-ends, piers or corner posts, barge-boards,
and hooded doorways. All this was enriched with
delicate window tracery, niches filled with sculptured
images, hammer- beams and brackets, corbels and
pendentives carved, painted, and gilded. The later
examples of the half-timbered style that are to be found
most commonly perhaps in Yorkshire, Cheshire, Derby-
shire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, and Suffolk are still
evidence of every conceivable diversity of architectural
ornament and small figure sculpture. In some cases
they show the preservation to a late period of Gothic
types and feeling. Others might be cited, but we may
take, as one example, a seventeenth-century house
in the Market Square, Shrewsbury, which is entirely
Gothic, the barge-boards carved with vine-leaf and fruit,
and scrolls of :branch and leaf work. Or, for another
the " Feathers " inn at Ludlow. Earlier ones still exist,
even in London: for instance, the fifteenth-century
building in Cloth-fair, Smithfield— now the " Old Dick
Whittington " public-house — has some grotesque gar-
goyles still on the walls.
As in the case of mediaeval screens, we have little
knowledge of the actual carvers of this open-air de-
corative work, which is sometimes of the date of the
screens, and of that for interior construction : so strong,
so elegant, and yet so different in style and execu-
tion from the church work. That a certain amount is
due to the foreigner—to the Italians brought over with
410
CONCLUSION
Torregiano, and, in the succeeding reigns, to the
German and Flemish workmen and to imported goods,
we know. We do not forget such examples as the
Holbein chimney-piece of Reigate Priory, or Nonsuch
House as it was, from which the Reigate chimney-piece
came. Yet it is not to be too readily assumed that the
uncouth is invariably of native, the refined and graceful
of exotic origin. The stalls of Jesus College, Cambridge
(1496-1506), of King's College chapel (1509-1528), or
the panels of Queen's College (1531), all within the
same university, are evidence of fine English work,
even if the designs may have been inspired from Italy.
The field is scarcely less extensive in post-Re-
formation church wood sculpture of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. Such churches as Croscombe
alone are mines for illustration, and without pretending
even summarily to cover the whole subject, it will suffice
to call attention to that which is involved in the number-
less examples of screens, bench-ends, and pews- Some
of the latter — known as squires' pews — are huge
enclosures in themselves, covered with characteristic
carved work. Amongst them there are, for instance,
those at Stokesay (Salop), Whalley (Lanes.), Herriard
(Hants), the Bluett pew at Holcombe Rogus, the Drop-
more pew at Burnham, and — to take but one more —
the superb work at Lavenham, Suffolk,
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there must
have been enormous activity in the use of carved wood
for interior decoration* Whole forests of oak would
have been required to supply even one great house,
such as Aldermaston or Haddon Hall A bare list of
notable country-houses abounding in carved woodwork
would fill, with their names alone, several pages* Many
prominent examples occur at once to the mind First
of all there is Abington Hall, inexhaustible in interest,
with its panels, often of the misericord style, the spoil,
no doubt, of churches* Then there are Aldermaston
411
WOOD SCULPTURE
Court (Berks) and its noble stairway, with much evi-
dence in its figure-work that English sculpture was not,
at times, behind the rest of the world in delicacy of
treatment, knowledge of anatomy, treatment of drapery,
and power of execution. Or, as at Castle Ashby
(Northants), again a remarkable staircase of the early
seventeenth century, a most original treatment of tree-
trunks intertwined with ivy, trailing vines, and other
vegetation. Then, we have Burghley, built and orna-
mented by Germans (i577~i587) yet of English
inspiration, for it would be difficult to find a prototype
on the Continent, or anything like it. And, once more,
Bradfield (Devon), where there is no end of quaint
Elizabethan and Jacobean figure-work, in which the
grotesque runs riot: barbaric, perhaps, but full of
interest for costumes, and illustrative of the magnifi-
cence of a Tudor mansion. Again, we have Layer
Marney and its linen pattern panels, Godinton, Burton
Agnes, Longleat, Hardwicke Hall, Haddon Hall — the
list is endless. All abound in panellings and majestic
figure-work, especially in the characteristic giant ter-
minal figures and other caryatid monsters so frequently
used as jambs for the chimney-pieces. Uncouth thougn
the latter may be — perhaps no better art sometimes than
that of the sculptor of ships' figure-heads or of the Gog
and Magog type — still, however open to criticism, they
look well enough in the general scheme of decora-
tion, and we cannot help but feel a national pride
in it all As an example of the houses of wealthy city
merchants — numbers of which still exist in such towns
as Exeter — the South Kensington Museum is able to
show a complete room from the latter place.
An epitome of some of the most salient points in
the history of English wood sculpture of the periods
now in question could not, of course, avoid some men-
tion of Grinling Gibbons, upon whom so much extra-
vagant praise has been lavished, of Gibber, of Marot, of
412
CONCLUSION
Inigo Jones and of the influence of Sir Christopher
Wren. But there is no place here to discuss the
question of the position of Gibbons as a sculptor or
of his art as a decorator. That the latter is highly
decorative and pleasing from a certain point of view it
would be impossible to deny, nor that amongst the
profusion of work attributed to Gibbons there is to be
found both the mediocre and the exceptionally fine. We
may class among the very best such an example as the
decoration over the dining-room mantelpiece at Keele
Hall. Charming in their simplicity are the trails of
foliage, the pendent drapery tasselled and looped, the
floral frame of the portrait in the centre panel. We
need not cavil at the imitative art. All is in harmony
with the tone and details of the white marble mantel-
piece, with the added ornaments which stand on it, and
with the colouring of the adjacent panels. That is the
whole secret of this style. Gibbons or some other may
supply lengths of mechanically-cut work, more or less
faithful, clever, admirable imitations of animal or vege-
table life : not a little of the art lies in the man who
selects and applies them, and who has studied the effects
of light which their position and environments require.
It is curious to observe that the art of Grinling Gibbons
is altogether ignored by foreign critics. I know no
reference to it whatever.
No more has been intended or could have been
done within the limits of a short chapter than to give
some general indication of the wealth of material which
still awaits the student Much more remains to be
said in order even briefly to summarize the extensive
range which the story of wood sculpture covers from
the time of the triumph of the Renaissance to our own
day, AH with which we may connect it may not be art
of the purest and highest kind perhaps, but all presents
points of historical interest at least, and some may lay
claim to distinction equal to any other sculpture.
413
WOOD SCULPTURE
Amongst the latter few things in decorative furniture
stand out more prominently than the smaller work,
such as the framings of mirrors, and other things of
the kind, in which boxwood, pearwood, and similar soft
woods were used. The small nude figure-work on such
an example, for instance, as the mirror frame in the
Kensington Museum (No. 1605 '55)— Flemish of the six-
teenth century — is admirable. So, too, are such mirror
frames as the Flemish ones, in the style of the northern
French schools, with their rich decoration of strapwork,
masks, and foliage, enclosing medallions with figures
and scriptural subjects, of which there are fine examples
in the Louvre and Munich Museums, and, formerly, in
the Spitzer collection. So, again, musical instruments
form a class apart, of which it would be no exaggeration
to say specimens exist than which wood-carving of the
best Renaissance times offers no more masterly work.
We may take, amongst many, the lovely Pandurina,
in beech or pearwood, at South Kensington, the back
carved with a group of Juno> Diana and Venus, and
with delicate tendril and strapwork. It is French ^of
the second half of the sixteenth century. Or, again,
for seventeenth-century German work, the finely carved
head in boxwood of a viola di bardone. Nor could we
neglect the many charming lutes — amongst them that
known as Queen Elizabeth's at Helmingham — of which
so many were exhibited in the historic Loan Collection
of the Inventions Exhibition in 1885, Most interesting
of all, to Englishmen, is the beautiful boxwood violin,
completely covered with woodland scenes and figures,
deeply carved, in the collection of the Earl of Warwick.
This also is English work of about 1580, and said to
have been Queen Elizabeth's.
Up to at least the end of the eighteenth century—
that is to say, before the advent of utilitarian times, and
when life proceeded more leisurely and there was more
time to spare, people were fond of decorating the most
414
CONCLUSION
ordinary things in common use. Without alluding even
to such fine art as, for instance, an Italian knife-case at
South Kensington, dated 1564, there are innumerable
examples which would call for notice ; not all great art,
it may be, but interesting in the history of styles trans-
mitted from generation to generation. There are toilet
and table articles of all descriptions — combs, spindles,
snuff-boxes, tobacco - graters, stick - handles, pastry
moulds, fools' baubles, the curious Flemish ' Nativity '
cribs known as Repos de Jdsus of the fifteenth century
(see NIFFLE-ANCIAUX in Bibliography), knife-handles,
and a host of greater and lesser things. For knife-
handles and the like it is probable that such artists as
Fletner in Germany or Theodore de Bry in France
made models for reproduction by the goldsmiths.
Even the very tools the carpenter uses in his work — his
planes, chisel-heads or mallets — were carved, sometimes
with no mean1 talent. And indeed we could not leave
out of consideration the elaborate figure and other
carved ornament of the state carriages, sedan-chairs,
and sledges of the eighteenth century.
Until comparatively recent times woodwork gene-
rally appears to have suffered from unmerited neglect.
But with the present rage for every description of fine
art it is rapidly conquering its proper position. Any
scrap of old panelling — even if quite undecorated—
carved chests, and, above all, figures, are eagerly sought
after and acquired at almost extravagant prices* Really
fine examples of boxwoods will certainly become more
and more rare and desirable, and perhaps realize as
much as the rarest of mediaeval ivories. Forgeries of
wood-carving of the best styles and periods are not so
common as is usually imagined. They are indeed
beyond the capability, so far, of those who supply the
Wardour Street type. On the other hand — from early
neglect — we find but too often that pieces are put
together and made up in the most incongruous fashion,
415
WOOD SCULPTURE
The object of this book has been to gjive some idea,
to those hitherto uninstructed in the subject, of what is
best worth study and appreciation in the remains of
wood sculpture still existing, which is assuredly entitled
to hold no mean position in the history of the arts.
416
INDEX
ABRU22I, the, sculpture in, .
Adam and Eve, the, at Basel,
at Gotha, .
at S* Kensington,
• at Vienna,
PAGE
• MS
• IS8
> 153
J8, 107,
121
• 154
53» 403
• 33i
3*1-33*
. 26
. 291
• 47
80, 116,306
Aix, doors of cathedral,
Amiens, JBeau-Dieu of,
— choir, .
Angel choir, Lincoln, ,
Angels,
panels in Louvre,
Anna selbdritt groups, .
Annunciation figures, Italian —
Asciano, . + * 253
Berlin, . . .255
Cluny museum, , .252
San Gemignano, . . 254
Kensington museum, * 253
Louvre, . ,253
Lyon, . . .250
Montalcino, . .254
Orvieto, . .252
Pescia, < .253
Pisa, * , 248, 251
Annunciation groups, Italian, 246-256
Armoire of Obaaine, » , 22, 46
Armstrong, Clement, treatise by, * 189
Artists' names —
Abondi, A., . . , ,1:78
Agata, F. da Sant', , , 143
Angelo, M., 51, 168, 203, 240, 244
Avernier, A,, . . 324, 328
Baccio da Montelupo, . . 244
Bachelier, . . 406, 407, 408
Baerze, J. de, . . 50, 72
Baldun&H., . . .123
Barili, , 244,405
Beaugrantj 0. de, * * 58
Beauneveu, A., . , * 26
2 D
PAGE
Artists' names — continued.
Becerra, . . . 277, 365
Behan, ... 88, 93
B6rain, J., . . . . 409
Berghem, L. van, . , 153
Berruguete, L, . 199, 278, 365
Blondeel, L., 58
Bogaert, . . , .135
Boldu, . , . ,162
Bologna, G. da . . . 147
Bolz, M 97
Borgona, * . . .203
Borremann, J,, . . 70, 135
Boulin, A.,. . . 324, 328, 329
Boulle, .... 408
Broederlam, M., . , .50
Bniggenmnn, EL, . . ,136
Brun, C. le, , . , . 409
Brunelleschi, 162, 216, 223, 244,
266
Burgkmair, . , . .88
Burlenghi, A,, . . .261
Caffieri, P., . . 409
Cano, A,, , 192, 211, 276, 277
Caradpsso, IL, . 163, 244
Churriguera, G*, . 197, 206
Gibber, , , .412
Civitali, . , . 244
Clerc, L le, . . .329
Colombe, M., . 47, 405
Connixloo, J. van, . 72
Gozzarelli, . . . 244
Cranach, L,, - . 153
Crosse, . , 380,391
Culmbach, H,, . 165, 17 7
Dachauer, . . * 168
Dancart, » .365
Daucher, H,, 88, 92, 93, 124, 165,
176,177
Dello Delli 196
417
WOOD SCULPTURE
PAGB
Artists' names — continued,
Devis, ..... 72
Dollinger, H ..... 178
Donatello, 51, 120, 162, 216, 223,
226, 233, 244, 256, 266
Doncel, . . . . 365
Du Cerceau, . 32, 406, 407
Durer, A., 88, 119, 122, 133, 141,
15*3 *53> r54> 161, 1 68, 170,
181
Egas,E.de, . . 197,211
Erhart, . . . . 96
Eyck, J, van, 50, 56, 61, 65, 88,
122, 133, 265
Fermcci, .... 244
Fletner, . 141, 165, 168, 415
Fonte, J. della, . . ,257
Ferment, D.,
Fouquet, J.,
Francia, .
Fugger, J., .
Garcia, G., .
Ghiberti, *
Ghirlandajo, .
Gibbons, G.,
Giorgio, F. di,
Giotto, .
Girardon, . .
Glosencamp, H,,
Goujon, J,, .
Gouthtere, . .
Gumiel, P., ,
Hagenfurter, V.,
Haguenauer, F., 88, 93, 157, 165,
167, 168, 169, 371
Hennequin, , , , » 5°
Herlin, F., . , , .137
Hernandez, G., . 277, 278, 365
Holbein, * „ , 93, 169
Huet, A», . . . 3*4»3*8
Janni, ..... 359
Jean le Scelleur, . ,30
201
. 47
. . .163
. . .165
, . .276
. . 162, 255
. . .162
34, 409, 412, 413
. . -257
.218, 237, 244
. . 409
. . 58
3«i 406, 407
. , 408
. .211
97
-v
Kels, H., . . 165, x68, 173
Krafft, A., , 91, 99, 107, 131
Krug, L, , 123, 165, r68, 177
Lendenstreich, V., . , 86
Lescot, P., , , 33, 406, 407
Lochner, S,, . 89
Loedewick, . . . ,135
4l8
PAGB
Artists' names — continued.
McAtrt des Moulins, . .115
Majano, B. da, 120, 244, 246, 266
Maler, V ...... 177
Margaritone, . . . 246
Marot, D., . . . .412
Marville, J. de, . , . 50
Meit, C,8o, 91, 99, 121, 123, 142,
Memling, .
Mena, P. da,
Metz, H., ,
Meurisse,P,,
Michelozzo, .
Montanez, .
Mosselmen, P.,
Miill, L.,
Multscher, H.,
Murillo, .
Neroccio, .
Niccola, D. di,
Nunez, ,
Nuto, N. di,
Orcagna
Orley, B. van,
Orme, P. de I1,
Qttivetono,
Pacheco,
Pacher, M.,
Pastorini,
Petercels,
Pilon, G,,
Pisanello,
Pisano, A.,
68,
. 61,88
201, 211, 276
. . 97
, . 339
. . 244
201, 276, 277
. -54
, '97
99, 128, 129
. 192, 276
, . 244
, . 404
. . 276
- 218, sat
$55
* * 135
33, 406, 407
, . 260
a? 6*27 7
. .162
, .71
33, 406, 407
Niccola,
Nino, .
335
235, 243, 247
* 5 1, 236, 342
235, 243, 345, 347,
SS» a*6
, 97
Polsterer, P,,
Quentin, G,, .
Quercia, J, della, 304, 335^
Raimondi, M. A», , , 179
Reinhart, H., , , -177
Riemenschneider, T» (and see
under name), 65, 80, 88, 91, 93,
JEuesener,
Risue&Oi
Rodin,
408
«77
170
INDEX
PAGE
Artists' names — continued.
Roentgen, , 408
Rogel, 197
Roldan, . , . .276
Sambin, H., , , 405, 406, 407
Schaufelein, . . .141
Schongauer, 86, 88, 93, no, 119
Schwarz, H., 95, 99, 146, 164, 165,
168, 169, 181
Schweiger, G., . . .92
Settignano, D, da, . . 244
Sluter, Glaus, , . 26, 45
Sperandio, . . . ,162
Stoss,V.(and see under name),
79, 90, 91, 94, 99, 102-106, 125,
131, 224, 259
Syrlin, G,, , . , 116,333
Trupiu, J., . . . 325>328
Unghero, .... 244
Valenciennes, J, de, -. .58
Vecchietta, II,, . . . 244
Velasco, D., . . . 194
Vellano, . . . . 144
Verrocchio, . 244
Vigarny, P., . . 198, 365
Vischer, P., 80, 99, 107, 131, 141,
163, 259
„ Weiss, M,, . . . «97
Weyden, R. van der, 50, 61, 65,
73» 88, 137
Wohlgemut, . So, 88, 93, 95, 97,
IX2, x»7, jr6i, 178
Wren, Sir C, * • . .35
Wydys,H., . 99t **4* *4«» *59
Arts, medieval, not specialised, , $4
Ashmolean museum, the bronze
Hercules in, * . * , 1:44
Auch, choir of, * . * 334» 4<>7
Augsburg, a boxwood carvings
centre,
figures by Multscher at,
— — figures at, illustrated, .
Autun, figures in museum at,
Auvergne, school of, ,
*45
129
138
48
407
BAKOQTTB, the, . * . 60, 197
Basel museum, Adam and Eve, the, 158
^^, other figures in, . 159
Bedsteads, mediaeval, . » . 52
PAGE
Bench-ends —
Abbotsham, . . . . 370
Ashcombe, . . . . 392
Kilkhampton, . . . 370
Laun cells, . . . . 371
North Cray, . . • . .372
Poughill, .... 370
Warkleigh, . . . .392
Benedictine order, . . 28, 37
Berlin museums, objects in —
Annunciation group, . . 255
Boxwoods, . , . 145, 147
Bust by Montanez, . .213
Madonna by Giov. Pisano, . 235
Medallions, . . . .175
Pearwood St. John Baptist
head,
Portrait busts,
Bernard, St.,
his diatribe,
Berruguete, his art,
Bestiaries, .
Blasius, Prof,, his
Diirer,
Blutenberg, figures at, .
Bode, Dr.,
Bond, B., ,
F, .
BonnaflK, M.,
Hercules,
. 147
. . 156
• 37
. . 33
. 202, 203
• 341
drawings by
. 92
. 85, 129
. vii, 147, 155, 213
. 396,400
. 396
identifies Wallace
. 143
Borremann, J., his retables, .
Borromeo, St. Charles, . . 59
Bossy collection, Madonnas in, 65, 233
Boxwood, 33
carving in, * , . 140-160
models in, used for patterns, 141
Hercules in Wallace collec-
tion, r 142-144
figures of Adam and Eve, 153,1 54,
figure of Jamniuer, , .159
British Museum, objects in —
Hercules and Antaeus, . . 1 60
Lot and his daughters (panel), x 69
Medallions, , 172, 175, 178
Microscopic carvings, , .184
Portrait busts, . 152, 155, 157
Brou, monument at, . . , 149
Bruges, Palais de Justice, * .58
Town Hall, ... 58
419
WOOD SCULPTURE
PAG
Buckfast Abbey, . . . .39
Burgos, crucifix at, . . .21
Burgundy, court of, . 26, 45, 50, 14
Burlington Fine Arts Club, 123, 16
18
Byzantine influences, .
CALCAR, school of, . . 87, 13
Canons of proportion in figures, . 13
Caricature in Church art, . 345, 34
Carriages, state, . . . ,41
Cast of H. Briiggemann's altar-
piece 13
Champnol, chartreuse of, . .5
Chancel screens, . . 373-40
Atherington, 382, 392, 39
Banwell, . . .39
Bovey Tracey, . . 39;
Bradninch, . . .39;
Bridford, . . , 39
Brushford, . . .392
Chulmleigh, , , 3 96
Colebrook, . , . 3 92
Coleridge, . . .392
Fitzhead, . , , 396
Hartland, . . .396
High Ham, . ,396
Holbeton, . . .396
Kentisbeare, . . 396
Kenton, , . , 398
Lapford, . . * 396
Littleham, . , » 398
Lustleigh, , . .395
Plymtree, * . 396
Stoke-in-Teignhead, . .382
Stratton, .... 399
Chests and coffers, . , 292-299
Choirs and choir stalls, ,
early history of, .
— — stall, the term, .
~~ how assigned,
early mention of,
3'4
3x6
3^7
3*8
their parts, 319, 320,
352
> — — canopy of dais, * . 319
Churchwardens' accounts, . 378, 383
Churrigueresque, * . ,198
Cluny museum, objects in —
Annunciation figures, . .252
420
PAGE
Cluny museum — continued.
Chest, fourteenth century, . 296
Flemish Madonna, . . .65
Twelfth-century crucifix, . 220
Cologne, painting, school of, .88
Colouring of sculpture, 13, 66, 115,
*34> I37> 2S°> 261-278
methods and colours
used, . . . 264, 265, 266
universal in early and
mediaeval times, . . .264
by the Flemish primi-
tives, .... 65, 265
Devonshire screen-
work, , . . 268, 398, 399
in Germany, . * 269
the Niirnberg Ma-
donna, 269
in England, , 270, 27*
Theophilus, treatise by, 1 3,
- T ,
-- m Italy, . . . 273
-- in Spain, . , 274-278
Commission, Royal, on decay of
wood-carvings, . . * 35
Copying from paintings, engrav-
ings, etc., . 86, 88, 89, 90, 92, 1x9
Corporations, statutes of, . . 34
Costume, anachronisms in medi-
72, 138
409-4 r 4
411:
4x2
41 2
412
aeval art, .
Country houses, English,
Abington Hall, .
Aldermaston Court,
Bradfield, .
Burghley, ,
Burton Agnes,
Castle Ashby,
Godinton, »
Haddon Hall,
Hardwicke Hall,
ICecleHall, .
Layer Marney,
Longleat, , ,
Courajpd, L*, on a twelfth-century
crucifix, , at?, 219
Crucifixes and Madonna figures, 314-
338
Crucifixes*—
Anderlecht, at, , „ . »»x
Byzantine formula, , a i ;-a 1 9
4x2
411
41 a
4,3
4x3
41 a
INDEX
PAGE
Crucifixes — continued.
Cicognara, reference to, .223
Clermont Ferrand, at, . .220
Donatello's and Brunelleschi's,
222, 223
German, . . , 224
Italian, . . 221, 222
Romanesque, . 215-217
Veit Stoss , . . .105
Volterra, Deposition group
at, . . . .221
Crusades and Syria, . . 37
Cuenga, pinewood of, . . 32
Cuthbert, St, coffin of, . 20
DAUCHBR, H. (see under Artists1
names) —
Mr, S. M. Peartree on, . x8o
Destructions, iconoclastic and
Mother, . . 59, 93, 378, 383
Dijon, doors at, , . . .407
Donatello (see under Artists1
names) —
his St. John Baptist, . 256
his crucifix, . , * .222
his Magdalen, . , ,256
and Brunelleschi, . , 223
Doors, Italian, twelfth-century, . 241
Downside, abbey, coloured sculp-
ture at, 269
Downside Review i . „ . 318
Drapery, system of angular folds, 65,
8*. 93> **3
Durer, A, (see under Artists7 names)-*
his cipher, , , . 90, 91, 92
statuette attributed to, , * 90
his influence, „ 91
and the ' All Saints ' picture
frame, * , , * 9X
a sculptor (?) . - * 178
EFFIGIES, sepulchral, ,
Egypt, ancient, wood
in, .
England, foreign artists in,
•England, wood sculpture in
Alabaster work.
Angel figures,
2D2
sculpture
. 6-X7
• 54
279-312
29*
PAGE
England, wood sculpture in — cant
Anna selbdritt group, . . 306
Apostle figures, . . . 307
Carvers' names, , . 309-311
Character of English work, 282
Chests and coffers, . 292-299
Destructions and iconoclasm, 283,
287, 288, 289
Figures on bench-ends and
poppy-heads, . . . 284
Foreign work in, . .281, 282
Lecterns, , . ... 308
Lincoln Cathedral, fine work
in, 286
Linen pattern, » , . 297
Madonna statuette, . . 308
Mildenhall, fine work at, . 372
Panel, thirteenth-century, . 307
Panelling, ...» 298
Penury of early examples, . 3 x
Pieti of Battlefield, . 283
Roofs and bosses, . 290
Saddle-cantle, . , 309
Scarcity, reasons of, , 280
Sepulchral effigies, 299-306
Statue, St. Catherine, . . 372
Vierge owmntc of Boulton, . 283
EngRsche Gruss, the, by Veit Stoss, 1 04
Estofado, . . . 193, 275
Eton College, Egyptian figure at, . 14
FABRXCZY vii, 147
Flanders, art in, . . . »6, 53-55
political influences on its art, 53
Fleming, the ubiquitous, , 26, 54
Fletner, or Flotner (see under
Artists' names)*
Foliage in sculpture, 41, 384-389, 397-
399
Ferment, Barman* his art, , . 202
France, English occupation of, . 49
penury of early examples, . 39
schools of wood-carving, 32, 407
— — — wood sculpture in twelfth
century, - . . . « 4S
Franconian schools of wood-carv-
ing, 84
French and Flemish wood sculp*
ture compared, , . 56,57
421
WOOD SCULPTURE
PAGE
Fryer, A. C, . . . . 300
Furniture, domestic, mediaeval, . 52
. sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, , . . .408
GAUTIER, TH., . . . 209, 365
German wood sculpture —
Characteristics of figure work, 8 1
Choir work, . , . .331
Copying from paintings, etc., 86,
88,92,119
Early remains scarce, . ,76
Flourishing period, the, . 75
Franconian schools, , 83, 84
General remarks on, . 78, 79
Identification with artists
difficult, 81, 94
Influences affecting, , . 75
Little noticed till recently, 99, 121
Long faithful to Gothic, . 76
Medallions (see under).
Naturalism in, . ,76
Relationship with stone sculp-
ture, . , . ,95
Schools of, 79, 83, 87, 125, 135,
138
Similarity of style and tech-
nique, .... 95
Suabian schools, * . .83
Two great groups, . 77, 82
Wander-years, artists*, . . 82
Wanting in originality, . . 88
Woods used, , . 80, 85
Gotha museum, the, Adam and
Eve in, .... 151-153
Grohman, Baillie, . . 52, 85
Guild marks, . , 69, 70, 74
Guilds, quatuor Coronati^ . , 69
regulations of, 38, 41 » 4«» 44> $9
HABXCH, G., on German medal-
lions, » vii, 169
Haguenauer, art of, , „ 175, 176
Hartshorne, A., . ... . 305
Hawker, R, S,, . . . * 40*
Hercules, the, in Wallace collec-
tion, * 142-144
Hieratism, . , , . 6, 9, 33
422
Hispano-Moresque,
Hollinshed, chronicles,
Honestone reliefs,
or
PAGE
- 194,197
- 34
- • 163
. 4*
Imagines de vestir^ . . .276
Italian wood sculpture of the tre-
cento and quatrocento, , 239-260
Annunciation figures, 224,
241, 246
Pisa, Museo Civico, 248,
250, 251, 253
Renaissance, the, 242, 245
JAMNITZER, boxwood figure of, , 159
Jones, Owen, . . , ,361
Jfattt, the term, , . . . 319
Judith, alabaster, the, by Meit, xjo,
KOECHUK, M-,
306
LABARTE on the Louvre M and
F,
* Lapidaries,' .
Lecterns,
Leon, stall-work at,
Lincoln Cathedral,
Linen pattern, . » . ,
Louvre, museum, objects in —
Crucifix figures, twelfth cen-
tury, . . 217,219,
Eve, statue, polychromed .
M and F, letters carved,
Madonna by J. dellaQuercia,
of Bossy collection,
Medallions, ,
Piet& by Francia, *
Liibecfc, * . , , 87,
Lute, Queen Elizabeth's, ,
— — * the Helmingham,
Lyon, Annunciation figures at, .
M and F, carved letters,
Maclou, St., doors ofy -
Madonnas-
Byzantine formula,
342
308
199
286
397
220
124
190
181
4*4
4x4
ago
190
INDEX
PAGE
Madonnas — continued
Flemish, thirteenth century,
229-232
French, , . . 226, 232
Odigttrfai the, . . 225, 229
Romanesque, . 225,228,229
Ruskin on a French type, . 225,
Maeterlinck, L., on R. van der
Weyden, . . . .65,66
Marburg, statuette of St. Barbara at, 139
Margaret, regent of Netherlands, 149,
— her tomb at Brou, . .150
Marguerite de Valois, . , , 49
Marguillier, A,, , . . .127
Maskell collection, 211, 275, 306, 307,
308
Master builder, the, * . 24, 348
Medallions, . , . 161-182
cast and struck, . , -163
Centres of the art, . .164
described, . . . , 161
German, . . , 161-182
Scarcity of signatures, * .167
Value of, . , * * 182
Meit, Conrad (see also under
Artists' names), , * 150-157
Microscopic sculpture, 140, 183-1 91
Armstrong, Clement, tract by, 189
Flemish or German ? . , 188
Waddesdon bequest, . .184
Wallace collection, - 184, 189
Mirror frames, . * . .4x4
Misericords, the term, * , 354
Costume, « , * 359
Domestic, . . • 359
Foliage heads, , * 360
Games, . * * 358
Grotesques, , , , 358
Sacred subjects, « » 356
Saracens' heads, , * 357
Satirical, . * .357
Supporters, . * 355*361
Trades and occupations, * 357
Tufton Street, , * 363
Zodiacal signs, , * 35$
Monastic control in art, » ,38
Morgan, Pierpont, collection-*-
Medallions in, . . 176, 179, 181
PAGE
Morgan, Pierpont, collection — continued
Venus panel in, . . .92
Mudejar and Hispano-Moresque, 194,
197
Multscher, H-, art of, . . .129
Munich museum, portrait busts,
boxwood, . „ , . 152, 157
the Niirnberg Madonna at, . 133
Jlfuseau9 the term, . , -3*9
Musical instruments, . . .4x4
NEFERT, princess, statue of, .11
Neusitz, carvings at, , . , 86
Nude, mediaeval avoidance of, . 29
Niirnberg, its , association with
wood-carving, . , -99
Madonna, the, 97, 107, 117, 129-
I35t ^39
Pietk in Jacobskirche, 131, 134
OAK and walnut, localities where
used, 32
Obazine, armoire at, . . 22, 46
Orvieto, Annunciation figure at, . 252
Ottivetono, altarpiece by, . ,260
PACKER, M., art of, , . 85, 127
Parish records, . . . 378-381
Pasos, 277
Pausanias, 4
Peartree, S. M., on Daucher, , 180
Petrie, Flinders, quotation from, 16
Pews, squires', * * . .4**
Philip the Bold, court of, , 45. 49
Pisa, Museo Civico, 248, »Jo, agr, 253
Plateresco, . , . .197
Poupb and Poppy - head, the
terms, * 35*1 35*
Powell, Mr. D., „ . , . 37»
Prehistoric art in wood, . . 3
* Puits de Mofae ' at Dijon, the, . 51
de Quincy,
1 66
RABEGONPE, St., reading-desk of, 20
Realism in art; , . 44, 55> 56» 57
Reigate Priory, chimney-piece at, 411
Renaissance, the, - * 242, 245
urt, not for the people, 36, 395
hfts effectson piety, 96, 147, 395
423
WOOD SCULPTURE
PAGE
Renaissance, French, rise of, . 48
post, brief remarks on wood
sculpture of, . . 402-415
in Italy, . . 4°3
in France, . 405-409
in England, 409-413
61
Repos
Retables,
74, 77, 37
• painted by great masters, . 64
German and Flemish dif-
ferences, . . . - 67
scenic-like, . . .68
in North Germany, . , 87
• architectural framings of, . 96
foliage work, . . .96
Retables and altarpieces at —
Ambierle, . . . .66
Bamberg, . . , .104
Bopfingen, . . . .137
Brussels, museums in, 67, 70, 72
Claud de Villa, of, 66, 71, 72
Comte de Nahuys, of, . 66, 72
Cracow, . , . 79, 102
Creglingen, 65, So, no, 114, 115,
I2O, 122
Danzig, . . . .135
Dettwang, . . . ,107
Dunkersbuhl, . . . 137
Gries, . 127
Giistrow, . . , . 135
Haekendover, . . -72
Heilbronn, . , , . 138
Kensington, museum in, 67, 71
Miinnerstadt, . . 107, 119
Rothenburg, 83, 96, 107, 117
St. Wolfgang, at, . 68, 126
Salzwedel, . . . . 93
Schwabach, . . 95, 127
Schleswig, . , . .136
Suabian, . . , . 136
Ulm, 137
Zwickau, . . * , 138
Riemenschneider, T,, „ . 80, 106,
xo8-x25
Anna seMritt group, , 98,107,
HO, 112, 115, 122
Character of his work, 1 09-11 a
Civic life, , . . .108
Creglingen altarpiece, * 80, no,
114, xxs, xao
424
PAGB
Riemenschneider, T. — continued.
Dettwang altarpiece, . 107,119
Drapery, style of, . .113
Eve, of the Louvre, no, 113, 122,
124
Eve of Wurzburg, no, 113, 120,
124
Madonnas ..... 112
Magdalen of Miinnerstadt, . 65,
110, 112, 119, 120, 257
Mark or cypher, . . , 12 x
Miinnerstadt altarpiece, 107, 119,
120
Portraits of, , . , 108
Rothenburg altarpiece, 83, 96,
117
Salzwedel altarpiece, . . 93
Shrine in Munich museum, i x 8
Stone effigies by, 98, 1x3, 1x7
Tomb, . . , .121
Twelve apostles, * . no, 1x7
* Verganglichkeit ' group, 8x, xoy,
123
Wander-years, . . 109, no
Riemenschneider, tendency to attri-
bute works to, . . .97
Robinson, Sir J. C, . ,192, 237
Roch, St., statue at Florence, 80, 258
Rodin, ..... 44
Romances, mediaeval, * . 348
Romanesque wood sculpture, , 21
Rood, the ..... ,375
Rood figures, remains of—
Cartmel Fel, . . . 376
Causton, . 378
Cullompton, . . • 377
Etchingham, , . ,378
Gwerful Goch, . . * 376
Kemeys Inferior, . , » 377
Lapford, - . , -378
Mochdree, . » . .377
Rood-screens, * . . .373
Rosenheim, M., medallions tn coJ-
lection, . . , . 176,
Rothschild bequest, , . 88, 184
Rottweili figures by Multschcr at, 128
Rouen, doors of cathcdra1» » , 53
- doors of St Maclou, . . 407
- stalls, , . , 54,
INDEX
FAGE
Royal Commission on decay of
wood-carving, . < • 35
Ruskin, . 43 ,327, 330 396, 397
ST. WOLFGANG, altarpiece at, 85, 126
Salting bequest, . . 181, 182, 407
Salting collection —
Figure, St. Sebastian, . . 258
Panels, with angels, . . 48
Medallions, . . .181
Salzwedel, altarpiece at, . . 93
Saragossa, retables at, . . 205
Saxony, character of school, . 86
Scandinavian art, . . .21
Schwarz, H. —
Gothic sympathies, . 170,173
Medallions, , . 169-174
Venus, in Louvre, . . 147
Screens (see under Chancel screens).
Scribe, statue of, . - .13
Scriptural references, 4
Sepulchral effigies, , , 299-306
Seville, retable in cathedral of, . 207
Sheik-el-Beled, statue of, . 5, 7> *2
Sketchbook of Wilars de Hone-
court, .... 320,351
Spain, wood sculpture in, . 192, 213
transition period, . » 199
— — retablos, , 200, 205, 207
stall work, . , 207
Stall work, early rare, , 349
Stalls (see under Choir )—
Aerschot, . 354
Assisi, « . 353
Chester . 367
Chichester, , 369
Christchurch . 368
Cologne, - 351
Diest, . , 354
Dutch, , 354
Exeter, . 368
Fordham, . 369
Gatton, . 354
Hemlngborough, . 368
King's College, * 391,411
Lausanne, . , 351, 353
Lincoln, * . ,367
Louvain, * . * 354
N. D< de la Roche, . . 350
. , . , 3S3
PAGE
Stalls — continued.
Poitiers, . . . .350
Spanish, .... 365
Sutton Courteney, . . 368
Wells, .... 369
Westminster, . . , 367
Winchester, . . . 369
Windsor, . . . .367
Worcester, . . . -369
Xanten, . . . .353
Stalls, the earliest at—
Celles, . 349
Chichester, . . . 349
Christchurch, . . . 350
Exeter, . . . .349
Fordham, .... 349
Hasti&res, .... 349
Hemingborough, . » , 349
Lausanne, .... 349
Ltege, , . . .349
N. D, de la Roche, . . 349
Poitiers, . , . .349
Saint Gereon, Cologne, . 349
Saint- Andoche, . . • 349
Sutton Courteney, . , 350
Westminster, , . . 350
Xanten, .... 349
Statuary, canons of art, . . 3
Sterzing, figures by Multscher at, 129
Stockholm, Flemish retables at, . 87
Stoss, Veit—
Bamberg altarpiece, . 104
Cracow altarpiece, . 102
' Crucifixes, * ,105
Deokarus altarpiece, . 80
No examples of his work in
England, * . * 106
JBngBsckt Gruss, . .104
Etched work, . . 106
Madonna of Niimberg, 80, 134
Pieta in St. James* Church, 80, 134
Private life, . . . 106
St Roch, statue of at Florence, 80
Schwabach altarpiece, . .127
Straiten, churchwardens' accounts
of, 380, 399
Suabian altarpieces, . . .84
Symbolism, . , 25, 336-346
TARSIA and Certosina,
404
425
WOOD SCULPTURE
PAGE
Thausing, his Life rfDurer^ . 92
Theophilus, treatise by, . 13, 273
Thuringia, character of school, . 86
Toui, statuette of the priestess, . 19
Tournai, schools of sculpture at, 66
Tours, school of, . . ,47
Twelfth century, condition of art in, 2 3
Tyrol, profusion of carving in, .85
Tyrolese Gothic, character of, .85
ULM, choir of,
331-333
VALLADOLID, retable at, . . 204
Vasari, 131, 153, 162, 196, 222, 223,
242, 244, 246, 257, 258
Vaughan bequest, . . . 407
Venus panel, in Pierpont Morgan
collection, . . . 92, 163
'Verganglichkeit,' group attributed
to Riemenschneider, 81, 107, 123
Victoria and Albert Museum —
Altarpiece, Italian, , . 259
Angel of Annunciation group, 253
Anna stlbdritt groups, 1 1 6, 117,
306
Apostle figures, . , ,307
Boxwood canon kneeling, , 148
Cast of Bruggemann altar-
piece, , . . ,136
Cast of Bruges chimney-piece, 58
Chests and coffers, . ,296
Columns, Italian, , ,241
Flemish altarpiece, . .77
Groups and figures, English, 308'
Knife case, , , . .414
Madonnas, French, . , 234
Medallions, . 176, 177, 181
PAGE
Victoria and Albert Museum — eonf.
Mirror frames, . „ . 414
Musical instruments, . . 414
Panel, English, thirteenth
century, , . . .307
Panels, with angels, . . 48
Panels by M. Pacher, . .128
Relief in pearls, , . .278
Spanish art, , . 2x1, 2x2
Suabian altarpieces, . .136
Twelfth -century Madonnas,
226, 228
Vienna, Imperial Museum, figures
of Adam and Eve, . . .154
,"J — ' ^Q *Verganglich-
keit,' . . .81, 107, 123
WALLACE collection,
Walloon provinces and art,
Westminster Hall, the roof,
Wilars de Honecourt, .
Wohlgemut, his workshop,
Wood, its qualities, .
- perishable nature of,
varieties of>
142, 144, 182,
184, 189
,
Wood-carvmg, preservation of,
Wood sculpture, ancient, ,
Wren, Sir Christopher, .
Wiiraburg, names of sculptors of,
— - school of, . . . ,
Wydyz, H., Adam and Eve by, 158, 159
55
35
35 *
• 97
2, 31
• 3^
33> 34
• 35
. 17
373
97
86
XANTEN, .
ZWICKAU, Pieti at,
- 87, *35
86, 113, 138
Printed by T. and A* CONSTABLE, Printer* to Hii Mijewty
at the Edinburgh Univ«r«ity Pre«
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